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Are you a highway user who wants to travel on safe, less congested roads?
Join Andrew Stasiowski, President and CEO of the American Highway Users Alliance, as he speaks with leading experts about the latest policies impacting the transportation community. Each month, Andrew will cover topics of critical importance to the highway user community, from reducing congestion on roads, to reforming highway trust funds, to increasing global competitiveness.
Listen to new episodes of “Driving Forward” wherever you get your podcasts.
The American Highway Users Alliance is a nonprofit organization advocating for public policies that promote roadway safety, increase freedom of movement, and preserve opportunities for all people to live, work, shop, and travel unencumbered.
To learn more about AHUA, you can visit our website.
Andrew: Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Driving Forward Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Stasiowski of the American Highway Users Alliance Trade Association, Washington DC focused on bringing the road users community together and modernizing the system. Each month we are going to dive into a topic of importance to the road users community, and for our first episode, I thought we would start with a topic that everybody deals [00:00:30] with. But first here is our Washington update.
On November 14th, the American Highway Users Alliance held their annual meeting. This meeting took place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington DC and we hosted several members of Congress and administration officials. This year, we hosted members of the House and Senate who are transportation experts. They gave their thoughts on the implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, their hopes for the [00:01:00] next highway bill, and even some thoughts for how to reform the Highway Trust Fund. We also hosted leaders from the Biden administration who discussed electric vehicle infrastructure, roadway safety, and roadway investment. In addition to their thoughts on the highway programs, the members of the House and Senate also gave their thoughts on the looming shutdown. They were confident that we would have a funding solution to get us into next year, which will allow more time for the appropriators [00:01:30] of the House and Senate to find an agreement on the Transportation and Housing Urban Development Appropriations Bill.
The Highway Users have been very active in pushing for funding that exceeds IIJA levels. We are hopeful that this time will allow for the appropriators in the House and Senate to reach an agreement on a funding bill that will include additional money for the Bridge Program and truck parking in the next Transportation and Housing Urban Development Appropriations Bill next [00:02:00] year. The 2023 American Highway Users Alliance annual meeting was a great opportunity for the entire road users community to come together and discuss issues of importance for us all. Please be on the lookout for updates from the Highway Users on how we plan to approach the next highway bill in the coming year. And now onto our interview.
Many of the people listening in their cars may be dealing with this subject right now. [00:02:30] Today we are going to discuss traffic. Joining us today is Rebecca Brewster. Rebecca is the President and Chief Operating Officer for the American Transportation Research Institute, also known as ATRI. ATRI is an essential tool for transportation policy makers, and we are lucky to have Rebecca here today as ATRI just published their 2023 cost of congestion study. Rebecca, welcome to the Driving Forward podcast.
Rebecca: Thanks, Andrew. It's great to be [00:03:00] with you today and talking about, it sounds weird to say, one of my favorite topics. But it certainly is a big deal to the trucking industry and that, of course, is where ATRI's focus is research to improve the industry's safety and productivity.
Andrew: Yes, it is. You guys have been doing great studies on this for years now. So before we get into your report, I wanted to touch on a few issues just to first help the conversation. So my first question is, what is the difference between traffic and congestion? I find people [00:03:30] are constantly using these terms interchangeably, but they're not the same, right?
Rebecca: They're not. Traffic is just vehicles on the road, that's part of daily commuting wherever you are, daily life. But congestion is when there really are too many vehicles using the same space, bringing constraints to the system beyond what it was originally designed to hold. So whether that's the result of just too many people living in an area and resulting increased demand for the stuff that's brought on trucks [00:04:00] and more trucks in that traffic stream, or whether it's caused by a traffic incident or a crash slowing things down. Weather, weather events certainly add to congestion, but what we do at ATRI is identify what this means to the trucking industry because by articulating this situation with data and reliable data year in and year out, it helps policymakers understand how important it is to make investments in the infrastructure [00:04:30] to help eliminate this congestion or at least mitigate this congestion.
Andrew: So I think a lot of people will be surprised to know that we actually do try to determine how many trucks and buses and cars will be on a road, that's how we assign investment in these areas. How do you see these investments meeting with the changing of where people are living? I know people are constantly moving. I think we'll talk about COVID in a little bit, but I think we've seen COVID has caused a lot of people to change where they live, how they [00:05:00] commute, how they do all these things. Has that thrown a wrench in this even more so or what do you think?
Rebecca: Well, it certainly points to some findings in our research that might be beyond what people would normally expect. We've got some states on the top list for congestion that wouldn't necessarily jump forward to mind until you understand the underlying causes of why they're in the top 10, if you will. When you combine this latest study, our cost of congestion to the trucking industry with another annual [00:05:30] report we do at ATRI where we identify the top 100 truck bottlenecks, you really do start to map out where congestion is having the most impact on the nation's supply chain. Although I tell people particularly with the bottleneck list, these are places where we've identified they're particularly problematic for trucks, but the fact of the matter is, Andrew, cars are sitting in that same traffic congestion that the trucks are. It's not that the trucks are causing it or they're experiencing it any differently. These [00:06:00] are just tough places to operate because of the number of vehicles there.
Andrew: So let's get to another term because you've said it a few times and I know it's a big part of your study, but a bottleneck. Quickly just describe that for everyone who has heard the term but might not know the exact definition.
Rebecca: Right. Well, a bottleneck just brings a little more granularity to this congestion equation. And at ATRI we study truck bottlenecks and so we've identified over 300 locations on the US roadway system, primarily [00:06:30] on the national or the interstate highway system, but also across the national highway system where we call them "freight significant locations". So for us, there are places where there's a lot of truck traffic because that's where we want to focus our analysis on. But again, generally when the trucks are sitting in this much traffic, the cars are as well.
Andrew: Right. So let's get into the study. I know you guys have your top 100 bottlenecks, but what were your main findings? What were your key takeaways that people should be interested [00:07:00] in?
Rebecca: So again, the focus of this latest study, the cost of congestion to the trucking industry, is to look at the impact of that congestion that we identify in the bottleneck analysis and really assign a cost to it and understand what it means operationally for the trucking industry. So we updated prior cost of congestion work, the last cost of congestion study we did used data from 2016 and we updated it through 2021. So it's an annual [00:07:30] figure. We've updated now through 2021, and in 2021, trucking industry congestion costs hit $94.6 billion. So that's billion with B. 94.6 billion cost to the trucking industry. And of course, Andrew, if the trucking industry is experiencing those costs from wasted productivity and time wasted in traffic congestion, ultimately it plays out through the cost of goods that we all use.
Andrew: Right. So that's obviously [00:08:00] very timely as we're coming into the holiday season now and people are relying on more products being shipped and more on trucking even than they do normally in their daily life. Some of the things that we've talked about over the years, I think policy we've talked about over the years, is why can't we just add additional lanes to traffic to alleviate these bottlenecks? And I know that there are some who will say that if you increase the number of lanes on a highway, you'll just bring more people onto the road and it won't do [00:08:30] anything to deal with congestion. What are your thoughts on that?
Rebecca: Well, certainly there are those who say if you build it, they will come and there is some measure of truth to that. When we have more capacity, we're able to hand them more vehicles. But the fact of the matter is, in so many of these instances, Andrew, the traffic demand or the demand for that capacity has just far outgrown what that original section of interstate might've been built to be. And I mentioned earlier, states that are on the top 10 [00:09:00] list for cost of congestion that aren't ones that would necessarily jump out to you as states where when you think of traffic congestion, you think of these states.
But one in particular is Louisiana, and that's a state where it's in the top 10. And part of the reason is you've seen growth in their ports, but you also have in Louisiana State where their road infrastructure has just not kept up and it's in great need of repair. And so that deteriorating [00:09:30] infrastructure slows everybody down, creates more traffic incidents, creates more congestion, and therefore it puts Louisiana, a state people don't normally think of as a top congestion spot into the top 10.
Andrew: So that's an idea of resilience, right? If you need to build resilience into the system to where if you can't just expand, what about adding additional routes that may get to similar places but aren't just adding along that same route but can alleviate some of the congestion? [00:10:00] Have you seen successes with that?
Rebecca: Absolutely. Anytime you can add new capacity, whether it be for cars or trucks, and I think of a location not far from my office here in Atlanta where express lanes were added for car drivers. And it's a tolled express lane for car drivers, but it takes those vehicles that choose to pay that toll for a car driver out of the general traffic stream. And we've seen that particular location because cars have jumped [00:10:30] over to the toll lanes, we've seen that particular location drop down in its ranking on our annual bottleneck list. When you have new capacity that provides an option for users to take advantage of if they choose to, you do see improvements in the traffic congestion in that location.
Andrew: And I think he said it was, what, $94 billion was the most recent number?
Rebecca: $94 billion. And another thing we do in this analysis, Andrew, [00:11:00] that I think really brings it into perspective for people is we equate that to how many truck drivers it is sitting still for an entire year. So it's 1.2 billion hours of lost productivity, which is the equivalent of 460,000 truck drivers sitting still for an entire year, 460,000 truck drivers. So when you look at the driver shortage numbers we see coming out of the American Trucking Association, depending on the year, it's typically between [00:11:30] 65,000 and 80,000 drivers needed. And because of traffic congestion, we have what equates to 460,000 drivers going nowhere for an entire year.
Andrew: So it's just compounding that impact right there.
Rebecca: It is. It is.
Andrew: One of the things that we're looking at, at the Highway Users and we want to start talking about is our global competitiveness through our infrastructure. How does our bottlenecks and our ability for truck traffic to move compare to, say, China or India or the [00:12:00] European Union who we're going to be competing for for investment and manufacturing and jobs and everything.
Rebecca: Right. Well, certainly we have to address our infrastructure if we're going to bring as many in this country want to do nearshoring or reshoring of our manufacturing and our component manufacturing. If we want to do that, we have to make sure that our infrastructure is built up to a way that it can handle it without this strangulation from congestion, quite frankly, because it does start [00:12:30] to hurt our competitiveness globally.
Andrew: So are you seeing these bottlenecks mostly just in areas of multiple highways? Are you seeing it in ports, everywhere? Is there a common theme you're seeing?
Rebecca: It's amazing. When we look particularly at the top 100 bottlenecks, they really do cover the continuum. You have major metropolitan areas where you have multiple interstate coming together, and it's not surprising to see that. But then again, you have stretches of roadway in other states where you wouldn't think it would be a [00:13:00] highly congested area, but where through either in the case of Louisiana, the infrastructure is in such need of repair that it creates congestion. Or there are places where the state has really put a lot of investment into, for instance, inland ports and building new warehouses to meet increased consumer demand that we see tremendous growth and congestion because with all that increased consumer demand and all those goods going into those warehouses, you have to have trucks to take them in and take them out.
Andrew: [00:13:30] And our ability to build the infrastructure to compete or to meet that demand, just we don't have that capacity within our system now. It takes too long to build roads and to really identify where those new hotspots could be.
Rebecca: I think a lot of people get frustrated with this topic because it does seem like we never can build our way out of it. But Andrew, over the years when we've been monitoring traffic congestion in the trucking industry, we have seen some positive findings from [00:14:00] states that make an investment in their infrastructure and they see their congestion go down. And the number one location we always point to on our bottleneck list is what is now known as the Byrne Interchange in Chicago used to be called the Circle Interchange. When we started doing our annual bottleneck analysis, it was the number one location for three years in a row.
The state of Illinois at that point made a decision to make an investment in that interchange. They cited specifically the fact that they no longer wanted [00:14:30] to have the number one truck bottleneck in the country. We love that, it's the poster child for why we do that research. Well, it's still in the top 10 list. It's now at number six in our most recent list because when you have construction, you're going to have congestion, but the fact of the matter is, it has come down the list and like other locations we've seen on that top 100 list, when that construction is complete, we expect it will drop down even farther.
Andrew: So do you think a lot of these projects that you've identified, are they [00:15:00] mostly, I don't want to say state projects, but are they multi-state, are they more within a localized area that can be more easily fixed, or is it going to take larger investments?
Rebecca: Well, a lot depends on the state, but I think about my hometown here at Atlanta and the significant investment that the Georgia DOT is putting in around 285, which is our perimeter here in Atlanta that goes around Atlanta. Was originally built years ago as a truck bypass for Atlanta, [00:15:30] but the city has far outgrown outside the perimeter. And so it is a major thoroughfare for cars and trucks and it's always congested. Many of our truck bottlenecks are on 285, but the Georgia DOT is really making a significant investment in fixing a lot of the interchanges where we have the most problems. So it's focused on Atlanta, but when you think of how much freight in the trucking industry travels through Atlanta coming out of the port of Savannah or coming out of Florida and heading to points north and west, [00:16:00] you really start to understand how these local investments really make a big impact on the overall supply chain.
Andrew: So over the years you guys have been doing these studies and pulling all this data, have you been able to figure out where future problems could become bigger problems? I'm thinking of areas like Nashville where you're constantly hearing about growth in Nashville or Arizona or areas like that where just a lot of people are moving and as a result, you're going to see a lot more freight movement [00:16:30] to accommodate that influx of people.
Rebecca: Right. And it gives away my age and my tenure, but as long as I've been doing this, we have started to see places where we know there's tremendous population growth and with that comes traffic congestion. And with that comes because of the increased commuter traffic, but also again, the increased demand for everything that comes on truck. And people I think sometimes forget that when they have a city or a locale [00:17:00] where there's tremendous population growth, all those people need all the things that are brought by truck. And so they cannot turn a blind eye and say, "We don't want trucks on our roadways. We don't like trucks", when everything that they have in their lives comes to them by truck.
Andrew: So back to COVID. I think we've seen obviously population shifts, but we've also seen a change in commutes. And I think part of that is people changed [00:17:30] how they commuted. Maybe they used to take the subway, but now they bought a car to deal with COVID, so now they're just not going back to the subway. People maybe only work two to three days a week now. So I know here in DC Monday's usually pretty light traffic. Friday's usually pretty light. Tuesday, Wednesdays seem to be a lot busier. How does that changing, impacting what we're seeing in bottlenecks and traffic patterns and congestion? Is there anything that you guys have been able to hone in on from that?
Rebecca: Well, [00:18:00] certainly we have seen a big change, certainly during COVID, if there was one silver lining for the trucking industry during COVID, it was the fact that everyone else stayed at home and the trucking industry didn't stop working. So we had the roadway system to ourselves and we saw average truck speeds go up closer to the posted speed limit because they weren't dealing with congestion. By 2021, which is again, what this cost of congestion study looked at, we did see traffic congestion come back because in a lot of places, [00:18:30] people were returning to work. Those stay at home orders were being lifted, employers were having employees come back into the office. But we are seeing some different commuting patterns, which are the result of, as you indicated, these hybrid work environments where people are at home some days and in the office other days, it will start to play out in the data as we look year to year.
But the fact of the matter is the trucking industry is a 24/7 industry. So trucking fleets have become very sophisticated [00:19:00] in their planning as much as their customers' delivery schedules will allow for it in understanding when they should route their drivers through certain locations. And certainly they use ATRI's bottleneck list as a tool in that decision making process to understand let's not set up a delivery expectation with our customers that would route our drivers around 285 in Atlanta between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM because that's the worst time to be on 285. So the [00:19:30] industry is constantly adapting and making adjustments as they can to congestion, but at the end of the day, it's such a big issue that we've got to deal with it for everybody because it really is in a lot of locations bringing the supply chain nearly to a halt.
Andrew: Along those lines, have you guys seen any impact of congestion pricing? I know the trucking industry is always going to be conscious of making sure that they can deliver their goods at the most efficient price, but as we're seeing a lot of cities are putting in congestion pricing or [00:20:00] only allowing trucks to enter cities at certain times or at certain locations, how is that impacting the ability of freight to move efficiently?
Rebecca: Well, when you look at an industry like trucking where the operating margins are as low as they are, there's not a lot of wiggle room for fleets. So if fleets are subject to the congestion pricing, if they're not able to pass that along to their customers, they're simply not going to be able to pick up and deliver in those areas. And so it brings down the supply of [00:20:30] carriers who might be servicing an area. It's just a very difficult situation for the industry. When I talk about the bottleneck list in particular, the number one location is Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Well, that's the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge and that's a toll bridge. And so fleets whose trucks and drivers have to go over the George Washington Bridge face a very significant toll. It's over a hundred dollars one trip for a large commercial vehicle. If they get over into New York and they go into the proposed [00:21:00] congestion pricing area, that's another added cost to deliver into the congestion zone in Lower Manhattan. It really starts to add up in terms of the cost for the trucking fleet to even service that area. And so if that's not able to be passed on to their customer, it really makes a tough decision for the fleet, whether they want to consider even servicing that particular route.
Andrew: And a lot of these congestion pricing locations, like you mentioned with New Jersey [00:21:30] and New York City, you don't have options really to go other ways. You can only go the toll route. There's no non-toll way that's efficient, right?
Rebecca: Right. Unless you're going to go way out of your way. And there are some fleets who will do that, who've made that decision to take other routes. But in terms of efficiency, and particularly when you see fuel prices so much higher, then fleets don't have really the option to go way out of their way to avoid those tolled routes.
Andrew: So one of the other things I noticed in your study was [00:22:00] by sitting for so long, the fuel burn just gets bigger and bigger on these trucks, and you go from, I want to say seven miles per gallon down to two and a half to three in some instances.
Rebecca: Yeah. And so using some publicly available datasets that calculate how much fuel is used in stop and go traffic, we calculated the total wasted fuel for the trucking industry in 2021, which again is one of those numbers with a B, billion. 6.7 billion [00:22:30] gallons of wasted fuel. And of course, Andrew, with that wasted fuel comes additional environmental impacts. So we have increased CO2 emissions resulting from that burnt, wasted fuel. And so this really is not just the trucking industry's issue, this is everybody's issue and everybody is experiencing this. Again, it increases the price of goods. It makes it harder for us to find and keep truck drivers because who wants a job where you're stuck in traffic all day long? And so that makes it tougher [00:23:00] for us to do all that we're expected to do in the trucking industry. So it really does have ripple effects throughout the economy.
Andrew: Would you say that that impact is more on the delivery side within more larger urban areas, or would you say that is more on the hub and spoke warehouse to warehouse portion of it?
Rebecca: I think you see it depending on where a driver runs, but certainly if you're a driver who comes out of, say, the port of Savannah or comes out of Florida, [00:23:30] you go through Atlanta, really tough traffic situation almost all hours of the day, quite frankly, if you're headed up through Nashville, there's another big traffic choke point. And depending on where you go, you're going to hit these major metropolitan areas that might be a through point on your route, and not necessarily just those last mile deliveries.
Andrew: This is going to be a tradition on the Driving Forward podcast, and you're going to be the first person to give this answer so congratulations. If you could make one [00:24:00] policy change and in your instance to relieve congestion and ease the movement of goods in people, what would it be?
Rebecca: Wow. Rebecca's magic wand.
Andrew: We might take that.
Rebecca: Well, I am very encouraged with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and what it means in terms of investment in our infrastructure. If I had a magic wand, what I would love to see is let's combine that increased investment [00:24:30] with an understanding by car drivers that where they have a choice to take another route or go at a different time that they should do that. Because in the trucking industry, in so many instances, we don't have those options. We have to rely on the national highway system to get us through and to our destinations. And in many cases, depending on what cargo we have on board, we can't divert off onto local streets. [00:25:00] It's just a very difficult, challenging situation for us. And where car drivers don't have the options, then they need to be more understanding that everything they want and use in their lives is coming on those trucks.
Andrew: That's true, and I think with the IIJA, we've started the process of really increasing investment in our roads and bridges. It was a huge increase in what we've spent, but we need to keep that going. We need to make sure we have the funding [00:25:30] in place to go beyond the IIJA and future highway bills need to continue to improve on what we started with the IIJA.
Rebecca: Absolutely. And for our part, we're just a little research organization, but we utilize in our research a data set that has nearly a million freight trucks worth of GPS data that comes into ATRI on a daily basis. And so we use that data to map out where these choke points or bottlenecks are so we can provide a roadmap [00:26:00] for where investment in these locations will have the biggest impact.
Andrew: Well, that's great. I think using data to identify future problems is a significant benefit to our policy makers and everyone in the transportation industry as we try to become more competitive with our infrastructure and get more people to come into the United States and invest here and continue to see, as you said, the onshoring and nearshoring of our jobs and manufacturing and everything else.
Rebecca: Absolutely. [00:26:30] Absolutely.
Andrew: All right. Well, Rebecca Brewster, thank you so much for coming on the Driving Forward Podcast. I really enjoyed the conversation and hope to talk to you again sometime soon.
Rebecca: Thanks for having me on, Andrew.
Andrew: All right. I wanted to thank Rebecca for joining us today on the Driving Forward Podcast. I thought it was an excellent conversation and I think we all learned a lot more about traffic and congestion. Please listen and subscribe to the Driving Forward Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.