Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
More than 60 percent of commercial truck drivers are forced to wait longer than expected on a freight dock while their trailers are loaded or unloaded, wasting precious travel time and causing friction in the trucking supply chain, according to results of a survey released today by an industry consultancy.
The survey, conducted by Portland, Ore.-based DAT Solutions LLC, also found a disconnect between the impact of "driver detention" on motor carriers and on the freight brokers who tender loads to carriers on behalf of their shipper customers. Of 257 motor carriers surveyed, 84 percent said driver detention is one of the top five problems they face. By contrast, among the 50 freight brokers responding, just 20 percent said detention was among the top five of their daily headaches.
According to the survey, 54 percent of drivers said they regularly wait between three to four hours for the work to be finished, while 9 percent said it's typical to wait as long as five hours. Only 3 percent of carriers responding said their drivers were reimbursed on the bulk of their detention claims. More than half said they were paid at no more than $30 an hour for waiting beyond the normal two-hour free grace period that a carrier grants a shipper or consignee to load or unload the trailer. It is rare for carriers to be paid at an hourly rate of more than $50, the study found. Current reimbursement levels are inadequate to cover a driver's opportunity costs of missing out on future loads while being delayed at a dock, according to the survey.
About two-thirds of brokers said they paid drivers for lost time only when they collected detention fees from the shipper or consignees. The remaining one-third paid detention fees after drivers complained. However, detention was an issue that carriers only "sometimes" complained about, the brokers said, adding that the carrier complaints centered on the actions of a few shippers, not most of them.
The survey did not address whether drivers are detained more frequently at a shipper's or a receiver's dock, though it is believed that detention is a problem at both. The survey also did not determine whether the problem was more prevalent among truckload or less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, or among small or large fleets.
Don Thornton, senior vice president at DAT, called driver detention an "urgent issue" that shippers and consignees need to put at the top of their priority lists. "Many shippers and receivers are lax about their dock operations, but it's the carriers and drivers who are forced to pay for that inefficiency," Thornton said in a statement.
Norita Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), said that dock delays are a serious problem for drivers because they are paid only when their wheels are turning and are already subject to daily caps on their drive times. The basic structure of driver pay means that users of trucking services have no motivation to improve the situation, Taylor added. "Because drivers are not paid for their time, shippers and receivers have no incentive to value truckers' time," she said. "It is the biggest inefficiency in trucking."
A December 2014 study by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the sub-agency of the Department of Transportation that regulates motor carrier safety among its various functions, found that drivers, in general, encountered detention times on 10 percent of their stops, and were held, on average, for 3.4 hours, or 1.4 hours beyond the accepted two-hour window. Mid-sized carriers—fleets with 51 to 500 tractors—experienced twice as many incidents of detention as larger carriers, though the average length of time of a detention was about the same, according to the study.
Drivers for truckload carriers were five times more likely to be detained than were drivers for private carriers, and 2.6 times more likely than LTL carriers, according to the FMCSA study. The odds of a truckload driver being detained were nearly 5 times greater than for private carriers and 2.6 times greater than for for-hire LTL carriers, the study found.
Ironically, the FMCSA study concluded that the odds of a driver for a temperature-controlled carrier being detained were 6.3 times greater than for dry bulk carriers, even though the contents of a temperature-controlled trailer would be more susceptible to spoilage due to long wait times.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.