Investment research firm Stifel says the trucking industry will consolidate more rapidly in the next three to five years as costs rise and capacity becomes tighter.
As the Journal of Commerce reports, the research firm made the predictions after a conference call with American Trucking Associations Executive Vice President Dave Osiecki.
“Consistent with our longstanding theme, the ‘mother of all capacity shortages’ in trucking is coming,” Stifel said. “It will be a function of the onslaught of federal laws and federally mandated rules and regulations combined with a series of demographic and social preference shifts that will make it difficult to replace soon-to-retire older truck drivers.”
A rule mandating use of electronic logging devices — now being developed by regulators — will reduce overall industry productivity, he added, tightening capacity further.. With electronic logs, he said, drivers will not be able to falsify logs to drive beyond legal limits.
