WASHINGTON — A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says the U.S. Department of Transportation should tap existing and planned data collection efforts to gain a better understanding of how the compensation and working conditions of long-distance for-hire truck drivers may impact their decisions on the job and the safety of their driving. The report was requested by Congress as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The nation’s economy depends in large part on the safe and efficient transportation of goods and passengers by commercial motor vehicles. This industry is also a significant source of jobs, with over 900,000 for-hire trucking drivers and nearly 20,000 intercity and charter bus drivers in the U.S.

Drivers in the long-distance truckload sector are paid by mile driven or by other piece rate methods, instead of for hours worked or on salary. This compensation structure has a long history in the industry, becoming entrenched during the sector’s economic deregulation in the 1970s and 1980s, the report says.

More recently, concerns have been raised that long-distance for-hire truck drivers could engage in unsafe driving behaviors depending on their compensation type. The sector also has persistently high rates of driver turnover, raising questions about the effect that compensation methods may have on driver retention. Interviews with truck drivers commissioned by the study’s committee help illustrate these concerns.

The report finds that available data and research methodologies are insufficient to determine whether driver working conditions and compensation methods affect driving behavior and safety performance. Challenges include the general lack of empirical evidence, the proprietary nature of company data, and the fact that compensation methods are largely uniform in the sector — presenting limited opportunities for comparison.

“Long-distance truck and bus drivers are essential workers who ensure that people and goods safely and quickly get to where they need to be, all across the country,” said B. Starr McMullen, professor emeritus at Oregon State University and chair of the committee that wrote the report. “Obtaining relevant, actionable data on this sprawling industry is difficult, but this report identifies potential opportunities for the Federal Motor Carrier Administration to efficiently and resourcefully tap other research and data collection efforts and shed some light on issues that may affect these drivers and the industry as a whole.”

Specifically, the report recommends that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, part of DOT, explore cost-effective opportunities to tap already existing and planned research and data collection efforts to help regulators, researchers, and industry examine the potential effects of driver compensation and working conditions on long-distance truck drivers. The agency should also support further research on why safety performance varies between truckload carriers despite uniformity in compensation methods and working conditions.

There is even less relevant data on the intercity bus industry, the report says, but there are relatively few concerns about the industry’s safety performance or capacity to retain drivers. As a group, intercity passenger bus drivers have consistently strong safety records.

The study — undertaken by the Committee on the Impacts of Alternative Compensation Methods on Truck Driver Retention and Safety Performance — was sponsored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.

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