This paper analyzes the impact on the productivity of the U. S. interstate trucking industry of changes in the regulatory climate in 1980. Two methods of analysis are used; Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and Neo-Classical Cost Function analysis. The industry's performance in 1978 is compared to the performance in 1982. Results of the Total Factor Productivity analysis indicate the TFP of the industry in 1982, after deregulation, was lower than that of 1978. However drawing conclusions from this result would be unfounded. TFP analysis assumes constant returns to scale. Cost Function analyses find that the U. S. trucking industry exhibits significant economies of scale. As the trucking industry does not have constant returns to scale, TFP cannot be used to draw conclusions about its economic performance. The results of the Cost Function analyses are dependent on which model is chosen. The variable measuring the effect of deregulation is either positive or negative depending on exactly what other variables are included in the model. In none of the initial models is this variable found to be significantly different from zero. After deleting six data points which produce extreme residuals and correspond to questionable observations, this variable is found to be positive and significant, indicating increased costs in 1982. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The U.S. trucking industry was deregulated with implementation of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. After deregulation, increased concentration was observed in the general freight segment of the industry. The purpose of this study was to examine structural differences in general freight commodity carriers and to help explain the increased concentration. Cost functions were estimated for large and small carriers in order to see whether or not size related advantages exist. Although the hypothesis of constant returns to scale could not be rejected, significant structural differences were found between large and small carriers. The results imply that the services provided by large and small carriers are different. Presence of "economies of integration and "economies of route density" for large firms indicate the possibility of oligopoly in the general freight commodity trucking. / Graduation date: 1992

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This thesis consists of two essays on applied microeconomics issues. The first essay presents a hedonic price econometric model of vacant commercial land. The second essay presents cost frontier analysis on the industry and firm's performance of the U.S. Motor Carrier industry. Our hedonic price econometric model includes two new developments in estimating land values in a multicentric urban area First, two composite indexes of market accessibility and highway accessibility are developed to account for the impacts of different characteristics of different regional nodes on land value at a particular site. Second, we use nonlinear least squares to estimate the decay parameters of the accessibility indexes within the model. We found that market accessibility is the dominant land value determinant. The estimated market accessibility decay parameter is different in value from the ones that are commonly assumed in hedonic models. The effect of access to highway interchanges is insignificant. Corner lots are of higher value. Finally, under Seattle's zoning policy, zoning classification of neighborhood commercial and community commercial land does not have significant effect on land value. The second essay uses the stochastic cost frontiers to analyze the performance of the U.S. motor carrier industry in the pre- and post-MCA periods. The average industry inefficiencies were between 14 and 27 percent during studied period. Our results indicate that the deregulation has no impact on industry efficiency. After a short adjustment period, the average industry inefficiency in the post-MCA years falls back to its pre-MCA level of around 14 to 16 percent. We analyzed the firm-specific inefficiencies by tobit regression. Our result shows that union firms are 1.5 and 4 percent less efficient than non-union firms in the pre- and post-MCA years, respectively. Firms located in the southern region are relatively efficient and the ones in the northern regions are relatively inefficient. Our result supports Stigler's Survivor Principle that survivor firms are relatively efficient. / Graduation date: 1998

Increasingly, shippers need accurate motor carrier performance information. Carrier selection and performance evaluation programs, carrier certification programs and quality management programs all require accurate performance information. Traditionally, shippers do not have much experience in formally gathering and measuring such information. For those shippers and carriers who do measure performance, no standardized measuring and reporting rules exist within industry. Over the years, the accounting profession has established standardized financial performance information reporting rules based on user needs. The process used by the profession involves input from information users, exposure drafts that summarize information needs, and proposed measuring and reporting rules. Exposure drafts are criticized, modified, and recirculated. This iterative process continues until users accept rules. In an attempt to establish standardized carrier performance measuring and reporting rules, this study completes the first iteration of this process. This study examines the information needs of vehicle assemblers in Canada and the United States. This work is conducted while examining the feasibility of standardized measuring and reporting within this industry segment. From this research, the study suggests industry recommendations and future research needs. This study finds that vehicle assemblers generally have similar performance information needs but go about meeting these needs with different measurements. These information needs exist on two tiers. Popular delivery service attributes are on the first tier, while infrequent freight damage and loss, billing and service availability attributes are on the second tier. Although interest exists among vehicle assemblers to explore standardized carrier performance measures, barriers such as carrier performance evaluation program confidentiality stand in the way.

The purpose of this creative project was to provide those Black entrepreneurs interested in the trucking industry with information necessary for success in this dynamic field. This learning package was developed to satisfy two specific goals.The first goal was to provide future Black entrepreneurs with a background of the trucking industry. The second goal was to prepare an effective instructional learning tool for Black entrepreneurs going into the trucking industry.The problem of meager statistics on Blacks in the trucking industry led me to the development of my study. / Department of Urban Planning

Increasingly, shippers need accurate motor carrier performance information. Carrier selection and performance evaluation programs, carrier certification programs and quality management programs all require accurate performance information. Traditionally, shippers do not have much experience in formally gathering and measuring such information. For those shippers and carriers who do measure performance, no standardized measuring and reporting rules exist within industry. Over the years, the accounting profession has established standardized financial performance information reporting rules based on user needs. The process used by the profession involves input from information users, exposure drafts that summarize information needs, and proposed measuring and reporting rules. Exposure drafts are criticized, modified, and recirculated. This iterative process continues until users accept rules. In an attempt to establish standardized carrier performance measuring and reporting rules, this study completes the first iteration of this process. This study examines the information needs of vehicle assemblers in Canada and the United States. This work is conducted while examining the feasibility of standardized measuring and reporting within this industry segment. From this research, the study suggests industry recommendations and future research needs. This study finds that vehicle assemblers generally have similar performance information needs but go about meeting these needs with different measurements. These information needs exist on two tiers. Popular delivery service attributes are on the first tier, while infrequent freight damage and loss, billing and service availability attributes are on the second tier. Although interest exists among vehicle assemblers to explore standardized carrier performance measures, barriers such as carrier performance evaluation program confidentiality stand in the way. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Recent interest in logistics and physical distribution has fueled a move to position such activities as mainstream marketing functions. Transportation has been of particular interest due to the changes in the regulatory environment in the United States in the last decade. The changes have resulted in an extremely competitive market facing the carriers, and have provided shippers with a strategic opportunity to use physical distribution as a competitive tool in the marketplace. Research in the past in the area of transportation purchasing has focussed on identification of carrier characteristics that are considered important in the selection process. The present study viewed purchasing of transportation as an organizational service buying phenomenon. The carrier selection decision was viewed within the framework of the Sheth (1973) model of industrial buying behavior. Organizational characteristics, environmental variables and source loyalty toward existing Carriers were empirically investigated to determine their influence on the locus of the shippers carrier selection decision. The impact of the variables above on the development of criteria for carrier selection was also investigated. The impact of shippers' source loyalty toward existing carriers on the buyclass variable, and the decision outcome were also investigated. Organizational variables such as terms of shipment used, nature of firms business, and usage of intermodal carriage were found to have significant relationship to the locus of the carrier selection decision. Among environmental variables, sources of information that were utilized had a significant relationship to the locus of the carrier selection decision. Source loyalty toward existing carriers was found to be positively related to the frequency of purchase situations that were classified as routine purchase. Carrier selection criteria used by shipper firms were found to differ as the firms differed in their organization characteristics and environmental variables facing them. The results of the study provide an empirical test of a portion of the industrial buyer behavior model (Sheth 1973). The results provide carrier companies with tools to segment their potential market, and knowledge of the shippers carrier selection decision process. / Ph. D.

The United States trucking industry underwent deregulation starting in 1980. There was much opposition to the process in fears that trucking companies would be adversely affected by increased competition. There were also many proponents and researchers who proved that the increased competition due to regulatory reform only helped strengthen the industry by forcing firms to become more cost efficient. There has been similar opposition and support for the trucking provisions of NAFTA. Although the provisions have not been fully implemented, the trucking industry is well aware it will only be a matter of time. In early 2002 it was announced that the process to begin implementing the trucking provisions would begin in mid-2002. Many in the industry and other groups have opposed implementing the provisions, concerned that U.S. trucking firms would be subject to competition from Mexican firms, just as they feared trucking firms would be adversely affected by deregulation more than 25 years ago. This thesis analyzes the effects the 2002 announcement of the process to begin implementing the trucking provisions has had on the cost structure of the industry. It uses a translog cost function to determine if firms have become more efficient in the years following the announcement in anticipation of increased competition from Mexican firms after the provisions are fully implemented. The translog cost function is used to determine what effects the NAFTA variable has had on costs and what specific operating characteristics have caused the costs to increase or decrease.

This study investigated the relationship between firm economic well-being and preventable accident rates in the U.S. motor carrier industry between 1975 and 1986. In 1980 the U.S. motor carrier industry was deregulated which produced highly competitive market conditions. Firms facing such conditions were required to devise coping strategies if they were to survive in this new highly competitive business environment. This research suggests that financially weakened firms trying to survive in a deregulated environment would be forced to rely on cost cutting strategies which are inherently threatening to workplace safety. However, the ability to implement such strategies would be limited at firms where union contracts restricted management from modifying work rules. As such, not all motor carriers were expected to exhibit the same relationship between firm economic well-being and preventable accident rates. Multiple regression analysis was utilized to assess the relationship between carrier economic well-being and preventable accident rates at two points in time, pre-deregulatory 1975-76 and post-deregulatory 1985-86. Three major hypotheses were tested. First, the economic well-being of the firm was hypothesized to have a greater effect on the firm's preventable accident rate after deregulation than before deregulation. Second, the economic well-being of the firm was hypothesized to have less effect on preventable accident rates for union firms than for other types of firms. Third, changes in the effects of firm economic well·being on preventable accident rates were hypothesized to differ less across time for union firms than for other types of firms. As expected, union firms and owner operator firms exhibited a stronger relationship between fum economic well-being and preventable accident rates following deregulation than prior to its passage. However, the regression analysis for nonunion firms produced unexpected results. Nonunion fums exhibited a weaker relationship between fum economic well-being and preventable accident rates in the post-deregulatory model than was the case in the pre-deregulatory model. Possible explanations for this unexpected finding are discussed. In addition, this study challenges a widely accepted approach to analyzing workplace safety problems. That approach advocates focusing on the inappropriate behavior of specific individuals when firms are confronted with deteriorating workplace safety conditions rather than investigating organizational level variables which are routinely associated with unsafe working environments. This distinction is important because merely removing isolated individuals who are thought to compromise workplace safety will not provide a meaningful remedy if, in fact, such unsafe behavior is a response to managerial pressures. This study suggests that such pressuring would trigger :unsafe behavior in almost any individual confronted with similar circumstances. / Master of Science