There’s no doubt the recently passed infrastructure bill will have massive impacts on many industries, including logistics and transportation. Experts agree that short-term impacts could cause more headaches for freight procurement professionals. Two important topics come to mind and need to be considered… road construction and workforce shifts.
Road Construction
A large portion of funds has been set aside to rebuild roads and bridges. This includes big cities, which provide popular roadways used to haul goods from point A to B. Shippers will need to work with the local government to identify which roads will be under construction, for how long, and when. Only then can shippers determine if route adjustments need to be made to keep goods arriving on time as planned.
Workforce Shifts
Vaccine mandates, along with other factors, have negatively impacted the number of truck drivers on the road today, which has caused a tight freight capacity market. Simply put, there just aren’t enough truck drivers to haul goods. As local infrastructure projects begin, shippers should expect that freight capacity could only get worse as truck drivers leave long-haul trucking for construction-related jobs seeking better work-life balance.
To effectively maintain transportation budgets, acceptance rates, and on-time delivery (OTD), shippers need to plan ahead. Many shippers, due to Covid, have already turned to innovative technology to automate manual freight procurement processes, and dynamically source compliant, asset-based FTL capacity when needed. Shippers can also demand 100% data transparency from freight procurement providers, so they are armed with a complete freight procurement/ truckload picture which will enable stronger, data-driven freight procurement decisions.
For more on this topic, read this article from Forbes on why the infrastructure crisis will get worse in 2022 before it gets better.