Title: Truck transport industry in the USA: challenges and likely disruptions

Authors: Amulya Gurtu

Addresses: Austin E. Cofrin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, WI, USA

Abstract: This study presents challenges and likely disruptive changes in the US trucking/logistics industry in the next decade and how these challenges and disruption might affect supply chain management, logistics management, and truck transport industries in the USA. This is a qualitative study based on interviews with senior executives from big transport organisations. The shortage of drivers and capacity constraints precipitated to be the main challenges, and blockchain technology is likely to be a disruptive technology. There seems to be a consensus among the executives interviewed on the use of fully autonomous Class-8 trucks (semi) on highways and city roads that it is too far in the future. The study is limited to the interviews of eight senior executives from four big transport organisations.

Keywords: logistics industry; logistics services; transport industry; supply chain management; strategic management; supply chain risk; autonomous vehicles; blockchain technology; electronic logging device; ELD.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2023.128552

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2023 Vol.44 No.1, pp.46 - 58

Received: 10 Oct 2020
Accepted: 13 Jan 2021
Published online: 26 Jan 2023 *