Most of us have heard the old saying “If you bought it, a truck brought it.” Apparently a more accurate, but slightly less catchy version is “If you bought it, there’s a 73.7% chance that a truck brought it.” According to the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, trucks moved $10 trillion of the country’s $13.6 trillion in freight during 2012.
Looking at the percentage of freight value is only one way gauge volume however. In 2012, trucks moved 8 billion of the 11.7 billion tons that were shipped.
For-hire fleets carried 48.5% of all freight while private trucks hauled 25.2%. Just over 50% of the total tonnage traveled less than 50 miles, and more than 60% of tonnage traveled less than 250 miles.
When freight is measured by ton-miles (measurement of weight multiplied by distance shipped), rail moved more than trucking with 44.5% beating out trucking’s 38.1%.
This data is from the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Commodity Flow Survey which is published once every five years. All data currently available is preliminary data and won’t be finalized until the official release of the report in December of 2014.
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Source: overdrive
Even if freight is moved by ship or train isn’t it still loaded onto trucks?
Just what I was thinking. How many stores or DC’s have rails behind them?
I was going to say the same thing! No matter if it is on a ship, train, even plane, it still has to get to the store some way. Either if it is in a pickup, a cargo van it’s still being transported by a vehicle.
Never seen a train, plane, or ship pull up to a loading dock. Outside of the very few bulk comodities that are loaded by rail at the shipper but even those go to the shipper from the farm by truck. So 100% is still moved by truck. Just no the entire distance!!!!
Never seen an airline pilot, ship captain, or a train conductor, unload their freight either. But truck drivers unload themselves, or have to hire a contractor from the place they are delivering to unload their freight.
Unless is goes straight from the factory to the store by rail it was on a truck somewhere. These numbers are skewed because imagine the amounts of coal shipped by rail from the mines to power plants, take that out and I bet the numbers even some. Plus trains arnt limited to 80,000 pounds
How do you think it gets to the rail yard and to the ships. TRUCKS. That’s right in one way or another a truck is involved in everything you have. Be realistic and look at the real picture not the painted one.
Yes, Ray. You caught the same thing I did. Just how do those containers on the trains magically arrive and leave the train yard? I understand the point the article is making but 100% of freight is on a truck at some point.
So tell me again how that other 25% or so got to the store???
My 1st thought from just reading the headline was: name me one thing, anything that at some point in its transit has not moved at least in part by truck.
Last I looked, didn’t seen a rail depot or shipyard sitting behind the dock of our local Wal-Mart or even going smaller our local mini mart.
This is just one more way of trying to minimize and margionalize the role of the trucker in America.
I’m always amazed to see a train pull up to a grocery store dock. Quite a sight. Or how about those big jets dropping off a load of hardware at a Home Depot. (snicker).
thats what csx has trucks for. when the train can’t get anywhere near the delivery point thats when csx has their ( tru ) vehicles make the delivery.
Maybe trucks only hauled 73% of all the freight in the country, maybe. As mentioned before I could see coal being shipped from a mine to a power plant by train only. But EVERY THING you can BUY, was on a truck.
Department of Transportation, ( That’s the Feds Big Boys Cabinet which oversees FMCSA, FHWA etc. ) Bureau of Labor ( Who’s watching who ??? ) Commodity Flow ? Survey ??
Hell seems any Trucker can tell it like it is.
I either smell a rat or this is proof the “higher up” you are on the so-called white collar ladder the dumber you just might be. Probably both. Those rats in D.C. just doing the same of beating the working man down with lies and manipulation.
These numbers don’t add up. Trucks move way more freight than these DOT numbers say.
Tim, actually items such as coal, minerals n such are hauled out of mines at some point by Haultrucks. I have worked at mines haulin copper ingot, copper concentrate, nitric acid sulfuric acids, dirty waters n such. They may be mine haul trucks but they are ‘Trucks’ and they are hauled to mines on trucks too. So I feel that pretty much everything at some point in its evolution or final delivery was on a truck. So I’m sure the dept of labor statistics commodity flow statistics is wrong, like all their other stats.
As they say, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Clearly, they’re not counting something.
I tried to imagine buying something which, nothing of it had ever been on a truck. The only thing I could come up with would be something like a hand-made local craft item. Like that carved coconut you bought on your vacation to a small island. Or that chain-saw-sculpted bear someone made from wood found nearby. Of course, the knife and the chainsaw likely arrived on a truck, so maybe we shouldn’t count those either? Even software that you download – the download itself wouldn’t be possible without trucks bringing the physical infrastructure of the internet.
Even if you imagine the natural gas that comes to your home, (if you live in a city), through endless pipelines, the pipelines themselves wouldn’t exist without trucks, (thanks, flat-bedders!). And let’s not forget the tank-yankers who bring the fracking fluid to the field. Nor would trains, tracks, or ships exist without trucks. The ore to make the steel, the steel to make the parts, the parts themselves, all were likely moved on trucks at some point.
No part of this economy, however small, functions without truck drivers.
Do you not see the bigger picture ? This ‘DOT’ survey result is fixed to subsidize rail or whatever. It’s a slap in the face to our industry. No apology, I tell it like it is.
Tell me wise guys, how did it get from the rail yard to the consumer. Last time I checked karma trains don’t deliver at Close, home depot, Walmart or even the greenhouse. It is just as true as it ever has been, if you bought it, a truck brought it. It doesn’t matter one bit if something other form of transportation brought it to the truck