A Productivity Study of For-hire Intercity Trucking - 1978-1988 PDF Download

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Languages : en
Pages : 14

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Book Description
For-hire trucking is of vital and increasing importance in providing freight transportation services to the Canadian economy. It is also undergoing a period of rapid change as a result of deregulation. This paper's aim is to provide a clear picture of how the industry is currently functioning. It is hoped that in so doing it will be creating a baseline for future comparisons. The study found that during the 1978-1988 period the firms in the for-hire intercity trucking industry's composite output grew at about 7 percent per year. Overall, intercity freight rose more than did the GDP in the decade. The firms operating ratio rose at the beginning of the 1980s, but then declined again, though not generally to the levels of the late 1970s. Capital services grew at close to the same rate as composite output, but economies were realized in the areas of labour, fuel, and material inputs other than fuel. Owner-operators played a large role in the industry and permitted firms to change output levels without changing their levels of capital and labour by a proportionate account. Total productivity grew at a rate of about 4 percent per year. The largest increase in productivity lay in the area of labour services. Improvements in fuel productivity were slower than might have been expected and this may be due to frequent carelessness in attempting to realize the possible gains from using fuel efficiently. During the decade there was a decrease in capital productivity. This may have been due to a substitution of capital for labour, but there is also evidence that points towards the decline being due to changes in the age mix of the equipment fleet. For the covering abstract of the Conference, see IRRD Abstract No. 807771.