Trucking News: Sagemount Investment, New ATA Data, and Truck Parking

Transflo receives significant equity investment from Sagemount

We’re excited to announce a significant new equity investment that will help us fuel enhancements to the Transflo digital ecosystem and deliver the next great breakthrough in transportation technology.

Bregal Sagemount is a global private equity firm that specializes in backing growing companies. “We are thrilled to partner with the management team and investor base at Transflo,” said Philip Yates, a founding partner of Sagemount. “Transflo is poised to expand its position as a leading cloud-based business intelligence and payments engine in the transportation sector.”

The Transflo story involves a rich history of innovation. In the 1990s, we developed new scanning and imaging technology. In the 2000s, we pioneered techniques in physical and digital document management.

Today Transflo offers a suite of mobile, telematics, data, scanning and document management all in one integrated experience. We deliver real-time communications to thousands of fleets, brokers, shippers and commercial vehicle drivers who represent over $100 billion in freight bills each year.

These are exciting times for transportation technology. Sagemount’s investment gives Transflo additional resources to drive innovation at a faster pace—and deliver more services that help supply chain clients excel.

Trucking by the numbers: ATA releases new data

The trucking industry moved 10.2 billion tons of freight in 2020, a 15% decline from the previous year, according to the latest edition of American Trucking Trends published by the American Trucking Associations.

It’s been a long two years in trucking and the latest ATA report helps quantify the impact of the pandemic on the industry. Among the findings:

• The trucking industry generated $732.3 billion in freight revenue during 2020, unchanged from the previous year. The industry’s market share among all modes was 80%.
• Trucking employed more than 7.6 million people in industry-related jobs, including almost 3.4 million professional truck drivers.
• Women made up 7.8% of the nation’s drivers—an all-time high—and minorities account for 42.3% of truck drivers.
• Trucking remains an industry of small businesses: 91.5% of fleets operate six or fewer trucks, and 97.4% operate less than 20.

Produced by the ATA’s Economics Department, the Trucking Trends report covers a range of useful data, including truck freight tonnage; the number of Class 8 trucks in operation; revenues and taxes; employment data; and the number of miles traveled by trucks.

ATA American Trucking Trends is available for purchase now at www.atabusinesssolutions.com.

Truck parking: Time to feed the meter

The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is an opportunity to address a safety and productivity crisis that America’s truckers have faced for decades: a shortage of truck parking.

Noting that truckers spend an average of 56 minutes a day of driving time looking for a safe place to park, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association requested that $1 billion of discretionary funds in the act be dedicated to the national shortage of truck parking.

The association said improving the truck parking situation would help with driver retention and play a role in making supply chains more efficient.

“Truckers consistently rank the lack of truck parking as one of their top concerns, and there are few better ways you could improve their safety and livelihoods than by addressing the parking crisis,” OOIDA wrote in a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “It should not be a shock to anyone that good drivers leave the industry over the inability to find something as basic as a safe place to rest when they are weary.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and numerous states have been studying this issue for decades and have all concluded that there is a shortage of parking. Most recently, USDOT released the results of its updated 2019 Jason’s Law Survey in December 2020. The survey found that truck parking shortages are a major problem in every state and region, and that the problem continues to worsen.