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It is almost impossible to get the words rationality and trucking industry in the same sentence and make sense. It is in the nature of trucking for those involved to follow the heart not the head and, if the customer kicks up, drop the price. It appears it is a global problem and it’s been with us forever, there is just very little rationality in the way trucking enterprises do business.

“The competition has been carried to such an extreme which tends to undermine the financial stability of the carriers and jeopardises the maintenance of transportation facilities and service appropriate to the needs of commerce and required in the public interest. The present chaotic transportation conditions are not satisfactory to investors, labourers, or the carriers themselves,” said a US Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce back in 1935. You could argue this comment would be true about the road transport industry in just about every developed economy in the world today.

The quote was a starting point for a recent article by US trucking commentator Tom Kretsinger, on Big Truck TV. It’s difficult to decide whether the unchanging nature of the trucking industry worldwide is comforting, we are all in the same boat, or depressing, it doesn’t matter what we do we will always face the same problems.

It may not be obvious but trucking businesses are there to make a profit and this concept seems to get lost in the cutthroat battle to win contracts and keep customers happy. Trucking operators are willing to take incredible risks in terms of capital outlay for, what is quite often, a very low return with minimal guarantees. Everyone else in the supply chain from the manufacturers to the shippers and the end customer would close up their business tomorrow if they had to work in such a fiercely competitive and price driven climate.

So, what are the chances of some real rationality being injected into the Australian trucking industry? Even if companies manage to make some extra profit in the really good times when demand is high and the supply of available transport services is relatively low, all the good work is quickly undone if a small blip in the market makes operators nervous and prices are cut. Once one of the operators breaks ranks and start heading to the bottom everyone else has to join them.

If the evidence of what has happened in the US trucking industry in the past 75 years is anything to go by, it looks like we are going to remain bottom feeders for the foreseeable future. It’s no good waiting for generational change, it doesn’t appear to make any difference. We can’t expect help from anybody else in the supply chain, they are happy making extra profits on the back of a struggling trucking industry. Twas ever thus!