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Trucking’s research arm launching its annual survey of industry’s top issues

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An annual survey asking all levels of “industry stakeholders” what they believe are the top issues facing the trucking industry has been launched for this year by the American Transportation Research Institute.

The survey and subsequent report by the ATRI is annual. Its results will be released at the annual Management Conference and Exhibition of the American Trucking Associations in late October in Austin.

In the 2017 report, the supply of drivers was listed as the biggest concern shared by the more than 1,500 respondents to the survey. The ELD mandate–which at the time of the survey had its soft December launch still upcoming–was second on the list. It had been first a year earlier.

Hours of Service rules was third on last year’s survey, and the availability of parking was behind that in fourth.

ATRI is a non-profit research organization set up by various interests in the trucking industry. This annual survey will be the 14th, and ATRI said in a prepared statement that participation in it has grown each year.

“Completing this survey only takes a few minutes, but its impact can be immeasurable,” ATA chairman Dave Manning, president of TCW, said in the ATRI statement. 

The survey can be found here.  


John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.