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Mar 1, 2004 12:00 PM

According to research, more trucking firms are using the Internet to fulfill a variety of business needs — everything from helping recruit drivers to selling freight services to shippers.

“Over the last five years, I've seen a high rate of adoption of business Internet systems by truckers,” Professor Anuradha Nagarajan of the University of Michigan's Business School said. Nagarajan has been researching the economic impact of the Internet on trucking for several years and is currently finishing a book on the subject.

“I've been very impressed about how trucking companies are using the Internet to buy and sell services, connect with vendors, recruit drivers, etc,” she said. “The only issue holding back more widespread use of Internet and electronic-based systems is that most regulators still want paper documents, even though most trucking customers want everything to be done electronically. Trucking is caught between a rock and a hard place in that respect.”

Despite those challenges, trucking firms are still beefing up their use of the Internet. According to a 2002 study conducted by Ecom-Ohio, a state technology policy group headed by Ohio State University, 33% of Ohio trucking companies use the Internet as a business tool. This figure is higher than the 32% usage level by all businesses in the United States.