Value of Reliability: the Most Important Variable for Trucking Yet the Least Understood

Despite reliability being one of the most important variables for shippers and motor carriers, it is almost never considered in the benefit-cost analyses of roadway projects. This systematically underestimates the freight benefits of projects and leads to fewer investments that improve freight efficiency. The main reason for this has been the lack of robust estimates for the value of truck reliability. This study conducted a stated-preference survey that was completed by 1,142 shippers and motor carriers across the U.S., providing 18,096 data points on which to explore the tradeoffs made by actual freight decision makers between costs and travel time unreliability. This survey improved on previous efforts by presenting reliability in a way that is more intuitive for freight industry practitioners, and by limiting the cognitive burden of the choice questions. The sample was reweighted by U.S. commodity shares by distance to increase the representativeness of the results. Modeling showed that shippers and motor carriers place a high value on reliability, at $160 per each hour of unanticipated truck delay that occurs once every 20 shipments (95th percentile delay). Subgroup estimates showed that the main factor influencing reliability valuation was the ability of motor carriers and shippers to redeploy resources and react to unexpected traffic events. This led long-haul shipments and shipments made by small companies to have significantly higher values of reliability, because their options are limited and each shipment represents a larger share of their business. Truck owner-operators providing interstate service placed a very high value on reliability.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT060 Standing Committee on Trucking Industry Research.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Guerrero, Sebastian E
  • Noland, Robert B
  • Hsieh, Stan
  • Hirschman, Ira
  • Bryan, Joe
  • Bhargava, Abhishek
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 16p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Motor carriers; Reliability; Shipments; Travel time; Trucking; Trucks
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01697337
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-05175
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 1 2019 3:50PM