ATRI unveils top research priorities for 2020
The American Transportation Research Institute recently released its list of 2020 top research priorities. Issues range from small settlement lawsuits to vehicle miles traveled taxes.
ATRI’s board of directors approved of its Research Advisory Committee’s top research priorities in May. Areas of research include workforce, infrastructure, legal and operational issues.
One area of research will focus on the impact of small lawsuit settlements on the trucking industry. In previous years, the industry has concentrated on nuclear verdicts worth millions of dollars. This time around, ATRI will study legal settlements of less than $1 million. ATRI will look into frequency and fleet responses and analyze verdicts versus settlements.
According to a document from the FMCSA, most crashes result in small costs. The average is around $18,000 per crash, including very costly crashes. The reason the average is low is because there are relatively few costly crashes.
ATRI also plans to study mileage-based safety metrics. The institute will research metrics for evaluating safety performance other than traditional rates per million vehicle miles traveled. The motivation behind this issue deals with e-commerce changing business models, trip lengths and route locations.
The research group also plans to study owner-operators and independent contractors in the supply chain. Research will assess the role of owner-operators and independent contractors, including extent and type of use and financial/operational differences.
A cost-benefit analysis of VMT taxes also will be conducted by ATRI. Areas of focus include implementation and enforcement costs, potential evasion, and the challenges of implementing at the state and local levels.
ATRI also plans to review the impacts of rising insurance costs on industry operational costs.
Research on the topic aims “to better understand what fleets are doing to cover these cost increases, from reprioritizing technology investments to cannibalizing other cost centers, such as safety,” committee said. LL