taking it on the road

If the roads seemed a bit more crowded last year, it might have had something to do with freight. Data released by the American Trucking Associations (ATA) this summer showed that motor carriers hauled more tons of cargo in 2005 than in any previous year.

If the roads seemed a bit more crowded last year, it might have had something to do with freight. Data released by the American Trucking Associations (ATA) this summer showed that motor carriers hauled more tons of cargo in 2005 than in any previous year. In a newly released study, American Trucking Trends 2005-2006, the ATA reports that the trucking industry hauled 68.9 percent of the total volume of freight transported in the United States in 2005. This equates to an all-time high carrying load of 10.7 billion tons and $623 billion in revenue, representing 84.3 percent of the nation's freight bill. "Nearly every good consumed in the United States is put on a truck at some point," said ATA President Bill Graves.

The ATA's yearly trends and performance report found that more than 26 million trucks of all classes played a part in reaching the 2005 milestone. Of this number, 2.7 million were typical Class 8 tractor-trailer combinations operated by 565,000 interstate motor carriers.

As you might expect, trucks burned a lot of fuel hauling those billions of tons of freight. The nation's truck fleet consumed 51.4 billion gallons of fuel, both diesel and gasoline, last year, spending $87.7 billion on diesel alone.