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IPFS News Link • Transportation

What's Tougher: Finding Drivers Or Trailers?

• https://www.zerohedge.com, By Todd Maiden

While executives said driver recruiting and broader supply chain bottlenecks are ever so slightly easing, the procurement of equipment has gotten tougher.

"I would predict at this juncture, in our looking out at the trailer OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and the tractor OEMs, that it could even be more difficult in 2022 on production and delivery than it was in 2021," said Mark Rourke, CEO and president of Schneider National, at the Stephens Annual Investment Conference held in Nashville, Tennessee.

Lack of trailers becoming the new driver shortage?

Equipment purchasing for truckload carriers will be below normal replacement in 2021 given semiconductor and parts shortages as well as COVID-related labor issues that are plaguing the OEMs.

Derek Leathers, Werner Enterprises chairman, president and CEO, said current tractor and trailer orderbooks extend well beyond the OEMs' manufacturing capacity for all of next year, meaning the industry fleet, which has gotten older and smaller during the pandemic, won't be increasing anytime soon.

"I think you see continued contraction or at best case stabilization in '22 but with an older fleet," Leathers said.

Werner's average truck age was 1.8 years heading into the pandemic with trailers 4 years old on average. While a recent acquisition skewed average ages slightly higher, an inability to get all of the replacement equipment wanted has really pushed those averages up, to 2.1 years and 4.4 years, respectively.

Leathers said Werner wants to refresh equipment but "there's no line of sight to when that moment is, it's certainly not in '22."


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