Michael H. Belzer

Worksite-induced morbidities among truck drivers in the United States.

A critical review was conducted of social, psychological, and health science literature on the array of health risks and morbidities of truckers. Multilevel worksite-induced strains (e.g., long work hours and fatigue, shift work and sleep deprivation, postural fatigue and exposure to noise and vibration, sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet, exposure to diesel exhaust fumes, and other occupational stressors) were categorized into six primary morbidities for truckers: (1) psychological and psychiatric disorders; (2) detriments resulting from disrupted biological cycles; (3) musculoskeletal disorders; (4) cancer and respiratory morbidities; (5) cardiovascular disease; and (6) risk-laden substance use and sexual practices. Elevated morbidity risks suggest the need for the design and implementation of systematic epidemiological research and environmental interventions in the transport sector.

Pay Incentives and Truck Driver Safety: A Case Study:

This paper explores the safety consequences of increasing truck driver pay. The test case the authors examine involves a large over-the-road truckload firm that on February 25, 1997, raised wages an average of 39.1%. An analysis that controls for demographic and operational factors, including prior driving experience and experience acquired on the job, suggests that for drivers employed during the lower pay regime and retained in the higher pay regime, crash incidence fell. A higher pay rate also led to lower separation probability, but this indirect effect only translated into fewer crashes by increasing the retention of older, more experienced drivers. These findings suggest that human capital characteristics are important predictors of driver safety, but that motivational and incentive factors also are influential.

Collective Bargaining after Deregulation: Do the Teamsters Still Count?

Using data from the American Trucking Associations and a 1991 telephone survey of 223 major firms in the general freight segment of the trucking industry (SIC 4213), the author describes the restructuring of the trucking industry that occurred following economic deregulation that began in 1977 and examines how that restructuring affected industrial relations outcomes such as wages and union strength. He finds that both market concentration and competition increased after 1977. He also concludes that regulatory restructuring led the general freight industry to divide into two sectors, one handling full truckload shipments (shipments of 10,000 pounds or more) and one handling less-than-truckload shipments. The Teamsters Union lost bargaining power in the truckload sector, but it retained much of its bargaining power within the less-than-truckload sector.

Effects of Truck Driver Wages and Working Conditions on Highway Safety: Case Study

The role of human capital and occupational factors in influencing driver safety has gained increased attention from trucking firms and policy makers. The influence of these factors, along with demographic factors, on the crash frequency of truck drivers is examined. A unique driver-level data set from a large truckload company collected over 26 months was used for estimating regression models of crash counts. On the basis of estimates from a zero-inflation Poisson regression model, results suggest that human capital and occupational factors, such as pay, job tenure, and percentage of miles driven during winter months, have a significantly better explanatory power of crash frequency than demographic factors. Relative to the zero-inflation and count models, results suggest that higher pay rates and pay increases are related to lower expected crash counts and to a higher probability of no crashes, all else held equal. Although the data come from one company, the evidence provided is a first step in examining the structural causes of unsafe driving behavior, such as driver compensation. These results may motivate other companies to modify operations and driver hiring practices. Also, the need for a comprehensive study of the relationship between driver compensation and driver safety is demonstrated.

Empirical Evidence of Toll Road Traffic Diversion and Implications for Highway Infrastructure Privatization

Little scholarly empirical work measures truckers’ elasticity of demand for limited access toll roads. How do truckers respond to pricing signals? As price increases, how extensively do truckers divert from limited-access highways to secondary roads? At what price does this diversion impose costs on secondary highways? Using a unique data set, this article demonstrates empirically the extent to which pricing leads to diversion. Diversion is substantial, and elasticity becomes increasingly negative with higher tolls. This has significant policy implications. The diversion of large trucks probably creates an externality that, if it were priced, might cause the benefits of tolling to outweigh the costs. This diversion may have a safety cost because secondary roads are inherently less safe than limited-access divided highways. In addition, second-best truck routings may introduce costly deadweight losses to the economy, damaging interstate commerce. Profit-maximizing toll road operators might exacerbate this diversion to the detriment of public welfare.

Environmental Determinants of Obesity-Associated Morbidity Risks for Truckers.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the transportation environment triggers, exacerbates and sustains truckers’ risks for obesity and associated morbidities. Design/methodology/approach – An extensive literature review of PubMed Central and TRANSPORT databases was conducted on truckers’ obesity risks and 120 journal articles were identified for closer evaluation. From these, populations, exposures, and relevant outcomes were evaluated within the framework of the broad transportation environment. Findings – Connections between the transportation environment and truckers’ risks for obesity-associated comorbidities were delineated, and an original conceptual framework was developed to illustrate links between the two. This framework addresses links not only between the transportation environment and trucker obesity risks but also with other health strains – applicable to other transport occupational segments. Moreover, it provides direction for preliminary environmental-scale interventions to curb trucker obesity. The utilization of this framework further underscores the need for: an appraisal of the health parameters of trucking worksites; assessment of truckers’ obesity-risk trajectories, and examination of potential causality between the transportation environment, inactivity and diet-related morbidities; and the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to mitigate trucker obesity. While there is a geographic emphasis on North America, data and assertions of this paper are applicable to trucking sectors of many industrialized nations. Originality/value – The paper brings to light the influences of the transportation environment on trucker obesity-associated morbidity risks.

Railroad Deregulation and Union Labor Earnings

Federal economic regulation of the U.S. railroad industry began with passage of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, establishing the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) as the regulatory authority over industry rates, entry, services and finances. The Act protected railroads from intramodal competition in an era of severe railroad excess capacity. In the 1920s, intermodal competition intensified as the transportation of high-value, high-rate traffic (e g, manufactured goods) began to shift from the railroad to the trucking industry. The shift in traffic continued over the ensuing decades, accompanied by declining rail market shares and subnormal rates of return on investment.1

Supply Chain Security: Agency Theory and Port Drayage Drivers

Supply chain security presents numerous challenges to governments interested in defending against terrorist threats. While most approaches stress technological solutions, scholars and policy-makers tend to overlook economics, labour market issues, and industrial relations. Applying agency theory from behavioural economics, this article analyses threats to the US supply chain and opportunities for efficient solutions. Using data from a sophisticated web-based survey of owner-operator cost-of-operations, it shows that drayage drivers are among the lowest paid truck drivers and workers in the US. We provide evidence that low pay is associated with both safety and security risk. Low-wage labour and subcontracting present challenges to US and foreign supply-chain security because the market attracts workers who have few other employment options. In this environment, principals and agents currently make inefficient and inequitable contracts because markets do not reflect the complete costs associated with low-probability/high-impact events like cargo theft and transport security.

3. THE EFFECTS OF TRUCKING FIRM FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE ON DRIVER SAFETY

This chapter uses trucking firm-level information to address the paucity of multivariate analysis accounting for the safety effect of various types of truck driver compensation and firm financial performance. Using negative binomial regression models, we find that small firms with high liquidity are correlated with better safety performance. Likewise, small firms that devote a higher share of their revenues to labor expenses tend to have better safety outcomes. Although the dataset is limited in many ways, these associations suggest that small firms may be particularly sensitive to the competitive nature of the truckload sector, relying on the human capital of drivers to overcome safety challenges due to their size.

Tolling and economic efficiency: do the pecuniary benefits exceed the safety costs?

This article uses crash data, highway classification, and traffic statistics to estimate the crash cost per truck vehicle mile traveled (VMT) from 2002 to 2006 for trucks that diverted from the Ohio Turnpike to avoid paying higher toll rates imposed by the Ohio Turnpike Authority. The data show that the truck crash cost per VMT is lowest for rural interstates such as the Turnpike and highest for the roads to which truck traffic diverted. Using the elasticity of demand for truck use of toll roads, we then estimate that the crash cost of trucks diverted from the Ohio Turnpike to other roads during 2004 at more than US