Summarizing US Trucking Statistics

The US Department of Energy reports that class 8 trucks average 62,000 miles a year.

The American Trucking Association provides the following statistics on trucking in America.

Trucks move roughly 72.2% of the nation’s (USA) freight by weight.

US Annual Trucking Revenue:
$875.5 billion in gross freight revenues (primary shipments only) from trucking, representing 80.8% of the nation’s freight bill in 2021.

US Annual Trucking Tonnage:
10.93 billion tons of freight (primary shipments only) transported by trucks in 2021, representing 72.2% of total domestic tonnage shipped.

Taxes:
$48.46 billion paid by commercial trucks in federal and state highway-user taxes in 2020.
Commercial trucks make up 14.1% of all registered vehicles, and paid $18.3 billion in federal highway-user taxes and $30.1 billion in state highway-user taxes, in 2020.
24.4¢ in federal fuel tax paid for each gallon of diesel fuel as of January, 2022.
18.4¢ in federal fuel tax paid for each gallon of gasoline as of January, 2022.
32.7¢ paid on average in state fuel tax for each gallon of diesel fuel as of January, 2022.
31.0¢ paid on average in state fuel tax for each gallon of gasoline as of January, 2022.

Number of Trucks:
38.9 million trucks registered and used for business purposes (excluding government and farm) in 2020, representing 24.1% of all trucks registered.
4.06 million Class 8 trucks (including tractors and straight trucks) in operation in 2021, up 2.3% from 2020.

Mileage:
302.14 billion miles traveled by all registered trucks in 2020.
177.26 billion miles traveled by combination trucks in 2020.

Fuel Consumption:
44.8 billion gallons of fuel consumed by those trucks used for business purposed in 2020.
35.8 billion gallons of diesel fuel.
9.0 billion gallons of gasoline.

Number of Companies:
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, as of June 2022, the number of for-hire carriers on file with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration totaled 1,102,799, private carriers totaled 718,594, there were 153,191 carriers identified as both for-hire and private carriers and other* interstate motor carriers totaled 37,718.

* Other’ motor carriers are those that did not specify their segment or checked multiple segments. All other categories were excluded.

95.7% operate 10 or fewer trucks.
99.7% operate fewer than 100 trucks.

International Trucking:
Trucks transported 66.1% of the value of surface trade between the U.S. and Canada in 2021.
Trucks transported 82.7% of the value of surface trade between the U.S. and Mexico in 2021.
In 2021, the value of truck-transported trade increased 19.5% to $460.85 billion with Mexico; truck-transported trade with Canada increased 18.8% to $367.04 billion.
Employment:
7.99 million people employed throughout the economy in jobs that relate to trucking activity in 2021 excluding the self-employed.
3.49 million truck drivers employed in 2021 (an increase of 3.7% from 2020).

2 thoughts on “Summarizing US Trucking Statistics”

  1. $875.5 billion / (38.9 million trucks / .241) = Average $5400 per truck per year.

    If Class 8 does 90% (an estimate based on no data) of all freight revenues, that’s over $200k per Class 8 vehicle per year.

    • Almost 35 million of the trucks are light and medium trucks. Contractors driving around to house construction or remodels. uHaul trucks moving stuff for people.

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