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Pushing the Envelope Blog

Keeping the Trucks Rolling

Date: 03/21/22 | Category: Mail Processing & Transportation

According to a recent estimate from the American Trucking Associations, there was a shortage of 80,000 truck drivers in 2021. The pandemic worsened an already existing shortage, impacting a number of industries, from retail to manufacturing . . . to mail.

Truck drivers are an essential part of the Postal Service’s transportation network. The Postal Service relies on over 9,000 USPS-employed drivers and thousands of contractors to move millions of mailpieces each day across the nation’s highways, between processing facilities, as well as to and from post offices.

In our recent white paper, we took a look at the causes of the driver shortage and the impact on the Postal Service. We found that the shortage contributed to rising transportation costs, through higher costs per mile for highway contract routes and increased overtime for USPS drivers. In some cases, the shortage hurt service performance, because contractors were unable to supply a driver for a route.

What can be done? Our research suggests several possibilities, including marketing efforts to improve recruitment, focusing on the driver experience, using fuller trucks to lessen the number of trips, and following best practices for maintaining strong relationships with carriers.

Want to know more? You can read the whole paper here.

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charlie
Apr 9, 2022
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How much is walmart now going to pay drivers?.... good luck...
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Donna Pion
Mar 28, 2022
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Stop taking contracts out of the hands of those that held them and handing them off to large companies on the other side of the country. What we have seen is that these large companies are getting $1+ more per mile then had they been left with the local drivers and local companies that held them for many years. The DRO does not work in rural areas. Something about a "silk purse" and a "sows ear"?

All this has done is destroy the once local service that these companies provided to their communities. They know the Post Masters, the clerks, the rural route carriers, and their communities. I used to say I could set my watch when I saw one of the drivers pass my house. No more. Now the large trucking companies pretty much set their own schedules, Manifests are not worth much to them considering their are no consequences. So what they leave registers in their trucks overnight or drop off in other locations other than where they were to be dispatched. In addition, USPS has overpaid, in some cases on a single contract, close to $800,000 per year.

Time to pay attention to these "minor" details like throwing "the baby out with the bath water".