Trucks move roughly 71% of the nation's freight by weight. That is just one of many statistics calculated and tracked by American Trucking Associations' professional staff that you can learn about here.
Revenue:
$738.9 billion in gross freight revenues (primary shipments only) from trucking, representing 81.5% of the nation’s freight bill in 2016.
Tonnage:
10.55 billion tons of freight (primary shipments only) transported by trucks in 2016, representing 70.9% of total domestic tonnage shipped.
Taxes:
- $41.3 billion paid by commercial trucks in federal and state highway-user taxes in 2015.
- Commercial trucks make up 12.8% of all registered vehicles, and paid $18.7 billion in federal highway-user taxes and $22.6 billion in state highway-user taxes, in 2015.
- 24.4¢ in federal fuel tax paid for each gallon of diesel fuel as of January, 2017.
- 18.4¢ in federal fuel tax paid for each gallon of gasoline as of January, 2017.
- 27.4¢ paid on average in state fuel tax for each gallon of diesel fuel as of 2016.
- 23.2¢ paid on average in state fuel tax for each gallon of gasoline as of 2016.
Number of Trucks:
- 33.8 million trucks registered and used for business purposes (excluding government and farm) in 2015, representing 23.9% of all trucks registered.
- 3.63 million Class 8 trucks (including tractors and straight trucks) in operation in 2015. 3.68 million Class 8 trucks were in operation in 2016.
Mileage:
- 450.4 billion miles traveled by all registered trucks in 2015
- 273.9 billion miles traveled by combination trucks in 2015.
Number of Companies:
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, as of June 2017, the number of for-hire carriers on file with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration totaled 777,240, private carriers totaled 700,591 and other* interstate motor carriers totaled 80,247.
* ‘Other’ interstate motor carriers are those that did not specify their segment or checked multiple segments. All other categories were excluded.
- 91% operate 6 or fewer trucks.
- 97.3% operate fewer than 20 trucks.
International Trucking:
- Trucks transported 60.1% of the value of trade between the U.S. and Canada in 2016.
- Trucks transported 70.1% of the value of trade between the U.S. and Mexico in 2016.
- In 2016, the value of truck-transported trade slipped 1.4% to $372.8 billion with Mexico; truck-transported trade with Canada slipped 2.4% to $327.2 billion.
Employment:
- 7.4 million people employed throughout the economy in jobs that relate to trucking activity in 2015, excluding the self-employed
- 3.5 million truck drivers employed in 2016 (almost unchanged from 2015)
