Near-term projections for the trucking industry indicate a slow, steady climb to reaching previous peak sales levels, but not without some new challenges along the way. Specifically, FTR Associates President Eric Starks told industry representatives at the Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference in Dallas that CSA 2010 could ultimately create a driver shortage. Fewer drivers will be able to be processed through the system, which will result in an unprecedented driver shortage by mid-2011. Overall, truck sales and freight volumes continue to improve, though at times at what appears to be stop-and-start rates. Starks dismissed the idea of a double-dip recession given that manufacturing was growing. Instead, he suggested the industry was experiencing a “growth recession,” one in which recovery occured at such a slow rate it seemed the economy wasn’t improving.

“Why do you buy a truck?” FTR Associates President Eric Starks asked a gathering of several hundred fleet, truck maker and supplier executives and others on hand Wednesday, Aug. 25, for the Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference in Dallas. “To move freight” was the answer – in relative unison – from the audience, prompted by a message lit up on dual video screens behind the presenter.

Though he had to ask the question a couple of times to get the crowd really responding, the implied message rang clearly. The concern over the last several years’ freight picture linked every single individual in the businesses represented in the room, and though “substantial downside risks in the marketplace” made positive forecasts difficult to make, Starks said his transportation forecasting and analysis firm’s Trucking Conditions Index suggests the trucking industry broadly “will feel better and better through June 2011.”

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