Terminal and Joint Terminal Maintenance Facilities for Motor Freight Transportation

Although trucking terminals provide a number of services, from showers for truckers to truck maintenance and repair, the establishments are primarily used for their storage and consolidation facilities. Freight is combined and redistributed at these terminals in an effort to reduce the distances and costs of transportation. Terminals, therefore, are located in areas where the demand for transportation is high, and terminals are continually relocated according to shifting traffic patterns. While there are thousands of trucking terminals in the United States, most of these facilities are operated by trucking companies themselves and therefore are not included in this category. Establishments in this industry earned revenues exceeding $255 billion in the late 2000s.

The truck terminal industry boomed after the deregulation of the industry as a whole in 1980. Deregulation resulted in a 160 percent increase in the number of registered truckers between 1980 and 1991. New truck companies were often small operations that could not afford to operate their own terminals, and many new terminals were constructed. As the industry moved into the 1990s, however, shifts in both the economy and in distribution patterns reversed truck terminal expansion. Although an increase in traffic in the southeastern United States fostered growth in terminals in the region, many existing terminals were closed in the early 1990s.

A number of factors precipitated the terminal closings, such as the waning health of the trucking industry. By the late 1980s, many of the smaller operators who emerged after deregulation had been forced out of business. The post-deregulation boom was ended by an economic recession and an increase in competition from parcel carriers, such as United Parcel Services. The remaining companies were large and generally operated their own terminal facilities. Even those large trucking companies were forced to streamline their terminal networks in the 1990s.

The focus on efficiency and quality in the 1990s further encouraged terminal closings. Shippers and truckers were committed to reducing cargo damage and handling costs. These reductions were often achieved by minimizing the number of times freight was handled. As such, truck terminals were eliminated from the transportation equation if their use proved unnecessary according to freight handling standards, which emphasized efficiency over short-term cost savings.

One bright spot in the trucking terminal facility industry was the growth of intermodalism in the 1990s. Intermodalism, or piggybacking, is the use of two or more modes of transportation for freight movement. Often, railroads were unable to obtain right-of-way into ports because of the unavailability of land, creating an opportunity for intermodal truck terminals to be built in major ports.

Trucking was a $486 billion industry in 1998, employing 9.7 million people, more than 3 million of whom were commercial truck drivers. In terms of volume, trucks transported 7.7 billion tons of freight in 1998, accounting for more than 63.0 percent of all freight moved within the United States. Hauling this freight required more than 20 million trucks. By 2008, the trucking industry hauled just over 13 billion tons of freight, representing 70 percent of the total volume of freight transported in the United States. Revenue was $255.5 billion, and the industry employed 8.9 million people, nearly 3.5 million of whom were drivers.