The United States trucking industry in 2006 hauled more goods than ever before in a single year, the American Trucking Associations reported.
ATA's American Trucking Trends 2007-2008 reports that the trucking industry hauled 69 percent of the total volume of freight transported in the United States in 2006. This equates to an all-time-high carrying load of 10.7 billion tons, and $645.6 billion in revenue, representing 83.8 percent of the nation's freight bill.
American Trucking Trends, an annual state-of-the-industry report produced by ATA, reported that more than 26 million trucks of all classes played a part in reaching the tonnage milestone. Of this number, 2.9 million were typical Class 8 trucks operated by more than 750,000 interstate motor carriers.
Class 8 trucks drove 130.5 billion miles of the total 414 billion miles traveled by all weight classes used for business purposes in 2005. The nation's truck fleet consumed 52.8 billion gallons of fuel, both diesel and gasoline. The trucking industry spent about $111 billion on diesel fuel in 2007, up from $103.3 billion in 2006. Commercial trucks paid $35.2 billion in federal and state highway-user taxes in 2005.
The report can be purchased at www.truckline.com/store or by calling 800-ATA-LINE.