The other day I was walking laps around the truck stop in Richfield, WI. Each lap was about .75 miles
and I did 4 of them. Walking 3 miles around a truck stop led to interesting observations. I started counting. There were 81 trucks parked in the lot. Only 3 of them were from the top 10 truckload carriers. That comes out to 3.7%. So, I started wondering just how large this mythical mega carrier portion of the market is.
I did a little research and decided to use the CCJ top 250 carrier list as my guide. There is some mix between the less than truck load carriers and the truckload carriers. I decided as much as practical to go with the “pure” truckload carriers. The list has some familiar names like Swift, JB Hunt, and Schneider. Averitt was the only carrier on the list that surprised me. I added up all of the numbers and came up with 86,788 tractors. That comes out to a little less than 3% of the market. The larges carrier, Swift, represents less .6587 % of the market.
Dig a little deeper into those numbers. You will see that 25,819 of those tractors are leased. Most are owner operators. If you take out those 25,819 tractors the percentage controlled by 10 largest truck load carriers and it decreases to about 2% of the market. It is interesting that one of the carriers, Landstar, is 100 % leased tractors. Averitt is 100% company owned tractors. So even in that 2-3 % of the market place there is diversity.
Then I looked for my company, Paper Transport on the list. We are a relative newcomer to the list. I
think that we cracked the top 250 last year. This year we came in at number 200. The origin of the company was 2 guys fulfilling a void in the market place when Fort Howard Paper Company had an immediate need. They rented 3 tractors and were in business. I wonder how many of the 10 largest carriers had similar beginnings. They aren't actually evil. They are an American success story. Then I wonder how many will make the list in 10 years, that are 1 truck companies today.
How powerful are the mega carriers? I don't actually know. OOIDA boasts a membership of 150,000. That is almost twice the size of the top 10 carriers combined. Numbers will tell us that over 90% of trucks come from trucking companies with less 20 trucks. If we aren't more powerful in Washington than the top 10 carriers, it is our fault. Stand up. Join OOIDA, NASTC, or WTA. Write your representatives. Attend listening sessions. Be heard.
Current Streak - 9 YTD miles 27