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Do you ever think about how products you use on a daily basis got to the store? Have you considered how the new appliance you bought at your local home goods store made it there? Chances are they were delivered by a professional driver employed by the trucking industry.

 

Professional drivers play an important part in the United States’ economy. As we’ve mentioned in previous blogs, the trucking industry moves approximately 70 percent of all freight in the U.S. That’s about 11.5 billion tons overall. Even 67.4 percent of surface freight between this country and Canada is transported by trucks.
 

Reliable Revenue

 

• The total revenue this year from the long-distance freight trucking industry has reached $223 billion.
• The trucking industry achieved $796.7 billion in gross freight revenues last year. This number represents 80.3 percent of the country’s freight bill.
• Trucking is larger in annual revenue than any manufacturing industry in the U.S.
• This country’s trucking industry posted revenues in 2017 higher than the gross domestic product (GDP) of more than 150 nations.

 

Overall Employment

 

• The U.S. trucking industry employs nine million people.  Specifically, about 3.5 million of them are drivers.
• The trucking industry accounts for more than five percent of all the full-time jobs in the U.S.
• At least one in 10 truckers are veterans.
• Females comprise six percent of the industry’s drivers.
• Less than 10 percent of trucking firms are owned by females.
• More than 40 percent of the jobs in the U.S. trucking industry are held by minorities
• Truckers are less likely to be unemployed than other workers.
• More than half of the 711,355 employer and self-employed trucking businesses are classified as long-distance.
• The median age of drivers in the trucking industry is 46.
• The number of drivers employed by carriers operating from one to six trucks rose 68.6 percent from February 2012-May 2018.
• The number of drivers employed by fleets with up to 100 trucks rose by 40.4 percent from 2012-2018.

 

Median Mileage

 

• Registered trucks travel approximately 300 billion miles annually.
• OTR drivers log an average of more than 100,000 miles per year. Comparatively, the average for most U.S. motorists is 13,500 miles annually.
• The average length of a haul is 550 miles or one day of transit. The industry average is 73 loads per week.

 

Additional Facts

 

• There are 36 million trucks in the U.S. registered and used for business purposes.
• Most grocery stores would run out of food in just three days if OTR drivers stopped their route(s).
• There are an estimated five million trucks and two million tractor-trailers on the road.
• Approximately $4 billion in road usage and taxes is paid annually by professional drivers in the trucking industry.
• An estimated nine billion gallons of fuel are used annually by the trucking industry. This represents 12.8 percent of the total fuel consumed in the U.S.

 

Learn more about Dynamic Transit’s role in the U.S. trucking industry. Take a look at our service areas, fleet and commitment to our drivers and customers.

 

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