Study of efficiency trends and productivity changes in the US TL carriers: 2000-2009

In this study, the nature and extent of efficiency and productivity growth in the US truckload (TL) carriers is investigated using non-parametric techniques. To analyse efficiency trends, a DEA window analysis is conducted on publicly available financial data with a representative sample of ten publicly listed TL carriers for the period 2000 to 2009. Malmquist index is used to study the productivity changes in the US TL carriers. The window analysis results reveal that the average overall efficiencies of the TL carriers are relatively low. They do not show a definite trend, but tend to follow the general economic conditions prevalent during the study period. Furthermore, a majority of the carriers are scale inefficient, which demonstrates that the TL carriers are not operating at their optimal size. Malmquist results, calculated from the DEA results, allows productivity changes to be decomposed into two categories: technical efficiency changes, and technological changes. The results reveal that in general the productivity of the TL carriers has decreased mainly due to the technological regression.