Opinion: Gone with the backwash

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Rob McKay, Australasian Transport News (ATN)  /  July 27, 2016

What if they held a trucking industry and no drivers turned up?

Sorry, there seems to have been a reduction in the number of trucks on the road taking place. Oh, and there will be fewer of them in future.

Must have something to do with higher productivity vehicles ... or something.

What’s that you say? The forecasts are for exactly the opposite? That’s despite the boom growth HPVs and hundreds of thousands of extra kilometres of bitumen being open to them?

Ah! So that HPV (High Productivity Vehicle) bit is wrong but the forecast is right. Must be. Because, like Port of Melbourne’s five per cent container throughput growth, it always has been.

Half right or not at all? Did I do it again? If you say so.

The thing is, the truck numbers have to go down. Why? Well because there’ll be no one to drive them. Just like in the good ol’, bad ol’, for many trucking companies there, good ol’ US of A.

Haven’t you heard that everything the Americans do, we do a few years down the track? You know, like reality shows and neo-conservatism.

OK, yes it’s true and I’m surprised someone of your tender years knows of it, but we did allow Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s tilt at Canberra bog in the Tweed mud. Though there’s no guarantee the major parties won’t be Trumped at some stage.

That’s "at some stage", this is now!

Why not do a little study if you’re going to continue this conversation? Start with Truck Driver Shortage Analysis 2015. It was put together by American Trucking Associations experts – chief economist and senior vice president Bob Costello and economic analyst Rod Suarez, no less.

What’s it say? Look, its only 12 pages. That’s not a burden. But you say it is because what little spare time you have is being taken up in a difficult search for good drivers. Good drivers? You don’t ask for much... or are you asking for too much, these days?

Anyway, let me read this to you. I’ll skip the ‘dull’ bits: "The current average driver age in the... industry is 49. In addition, the industry has historically struggled to attract all segments of the population as just 5.8 per cent of truck drivers are women. This share has been essentially unchanged over time. Conversely, today 38.6 per cent of drivers are minorities, which has jumped 12 percentage points from 26.6 per cent in 2001.

"In 2014, the trucking industry was short 38,000 drivers. The shortage is expected to reach nearly 48,000 by the end of 2015. If the current trend holds, the shortage may balloon to almost 175,000 by 2024."

Since you ask, yes, there is an insight from the boss’s office.

Here’s CRST International CEO Dave Rusch: "I’ve been in the business 34 years, and I’ve never seen the driver situation like it is today... Typically, if we have freight, we can expand. We can’t grow now because of drivers. For the second year in a row, we are projecting zero growth."

And they quote Melton Truck Lines CFO Robert Ragan saying: "A significant amount of freight is being turned down... We’ve looked at acquisitions because we can’t grow organically."

Got that? It’s playing havoc with their businesses.

Now, compare and contrast.

Recently, Volvo Group – yes, the truckbuilder with a keen social awareness – unveiled a report called Professional Truck Driver Shortage: How driver availability impacts the transport industry & Australian society.

Of course you should have read it. Do you know how little worthwhile research is done into transport and logistics issues in this country, given the industry’s size and economic importance?

Have a butcher’s at this:

52 per cent of respondents reported having issues attracting the quantity of drivers needed

82 per cent have issues attracting the quality of drivers they expect

46 per cent of respondents experiencing a driver shortage right now

90 per cent or more believe the negative public perception of trucking is a bar to entry of young men, women and those of diverse backgrounds.

And that’s after the industry has had a pretty good tilt at cleaning up its act.

Just as an aside, did you see Victorian Transport Association CEO Peter Anderson railing against the ease with which overseas applicants can gain heavy vehicle licences?

Just as well senator Glenn Sterle had a committee on the job. That’ll fix it.

You have to say it’s not a good thing having heavy-duty trucks driven by barely qualified imported drivers, worse when locals would need to do two to six weeks of training.

Besides, they might be doing someone out of a job.

Oh, wait a minute...