Working in transportation for the last 35 years - the missing piece from the article is it still takes professional drivers to move across the country or from the seaports. We forget the ridiculous regulations (environmental/labor) put in place that hinder the needed expansion of our transportation professionals. The push for unmanned tractor/trailer is coming - I assume the gov’t will herd everyone into urban centers due to whatever virus is running rampant to protect us and keep the roads clear for driverless vehicles. Too many professional drivers retiring and fear of COVID or the vaccine driving them away (sorry for pun). The decline in numbers is significant; and pay is increasing - many drivers could start their own company with one truck and work whenever they want or need. The decline in available work force has been evident in transportation for years - other service industries just now seeing it.
Linedrive - You’re absolutely right. I focused on the ship and rail aspects of the supply chain, only because it was already such a long piece, and covering the issues with trucking would have had to add several more paragraphs. I figured I’d save that for another column.
But you are so right... we’ve had a serious driver shortage for years, and several things make the international/intermodal area especially painful for truckers.
The terrible wait for railyards to swing the containers down off the stacks... the terrible shortages of chassis... the way that so many importers sit on containers for days or weeks, which means taking precious chassis out of action...
in chicagoland, for example, a driver of a domestic 53’ can be in and out of a pickup or delivery in a couple of hours or even less. But a driver often sits half a day or even longer waiting for one pickup at the railyard, just sitting in line waiting. And at least ten or twenty percent of the time, they have to collect and/or return the chassis to a different yard than the container!
I feel sorry for every trucker stuck dealing with international/intermodal ocean containers nowadays. Long-suffering folks.