Food manufacturers, retailers and distributors rely heavily on the trucking industry for their overall supply chain operations – and the food industry is consistently concerned about the financial and operational health of players in their transportation and logistics networks. But food shippers try to find a delicate balance of also ensuring supply chain costs are effectively managed through their partner networks.

For this reason, food shippers pay close attention to the health of the trucking industry. So what’s the current state of trucking?

The industry’s average cost of operating a truck in 2024 was $2.260 per mile, a 0.4% decline compared with the previous year.  However, when lower fuel costs are excluded, marginal costs rose 3.6% to $1.779 per mile – the highest costs ever recorded by ATRI for non-fuel operating costs. This is according to the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), which recently released the 2025 findings of its leading costs and performance benchmarking report, An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking.

In addition, operating cost trends varied by line-item in 2024. Fuel as well as repair and maintenance expenses each declined from 2023 to 2024, and driver wages – the primary contributor to cost increases in the three years following the COVID-19 pandemic – rose by just 2.4%, half a percentage point less than inflation. Given the present trucking industry recession, carriers were particularly hard-hit by growing costs in several line-items, including truck and trailer payments (which rose by 8.3% to a record-high $0.390 per mile) and driver benefits costs (which rose 4.8% to $0.197 per mile).

Carrier profitability suffered across all industry sectors under these pressures, as the findings show in stark detail. Average operating margins were below 2% in every sector aside from LTL, and the truckload sector had an average operating margin of -2.3%.  

The report documents numerous operational impacts caused by the ongoing freight recession. For example, truck capacity dropped 2.2% as carriers sold trucks, empty miles rose to an average of 16.7%, and the number of drivers per truck fell to 0.93 as carriers parked trucks. Another cost-management strategy was reducing non-driver staff by 6.8%. At the same time, though, average truck age, average dwell time per stop, and mileage between breakdowns improved – all testaments to industry performance despite economic headwinds.

“The trucking industry is facing the most challenging freight market in years, with loads down and costs increasing,” says Greg Hodgen, Groendyke Transport President and CEO. “ATRI’s Operational Costs data and the customized benchmarking report that compares us to similar fleets are more critical than ever as we navigate rising costs and decreasing margins in this adverse environment.”

The full report is available on ATRI’s website here.

Related Articles:

• FLASH REPORT: A Taxing Time for the U.S. Economy
• FSA Report: Top Trucking Concerns: The Economy, Truck Parking, BEVs
• A Closer Look at Trucking and Rail/Intermodal Sector Economic Indicators
• Putting Numbers to the Trucking Downturn
• Uncharted Territory for Trucking Capacity

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