Estimating the Cost of Congestion to the Trucking Industry

Because of the critical role of safe and reliable truck movements in sustainable economic growth, public- and private-sector transportation managers continually monitor and evaluate the efficiency of the national roadway system. A key impediment to nimble supply chains is the level of traffic congestion experienced on U.S. roadways and the subsequent costs that are incurred because of that congestion. To facilitate the development of a methodology for quantifying congestion, a standardized approach is presented for calculating congestion figures that are comparative on a year-over-year basis. With this methodology, time delays on the National Highway System in 2014 were calculated at more than 728 million hours, equating to approximately $49.6 billion in increased congestion-related costs to the trucking industry. The congestion was heavily concentrated in urban areas, with 88.1% of the total cost occurring on only 17.6% of the National Highway System network. The lost productivity is equivalent to 264,781 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for an entire working year. Additionally, the average truck experienced an increased cost of $4,546 because of congestion, a figure that varied widely depending on the number of miles a particular truck traveled in a particular area. Finally, the presented standardized methodology enables 2014 to be used as a base year for comparison with future years, allowing for the monitoring of congestion effects over time. As a result, transportation planners and managers can evaluate system metrics such as planning efficiency and productivity for a longer time. The methodology also supports assessment of shorter-term events, such as natural disasters and infrastructure improvement projects.