WASHINGTON -- Deregulation of the trucking industry has resulted in more competition and efficiency without of service cutbacks to smaller shippers and communties, witnesses told a House subcommittee Wednesday.
A year after the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, 'chaos, which opponents of deregulations predicted would result from reform, has not occured,' Charles Swinburn, deputy assistant transportation secretary, told the subcommittee on surface transportation.
'The trucking industry ... has continued to provide quality transportation to all types of shippers and to smaller as well as large communities, even throughout a difficult economic period,' he said at the annual oversight hearing mandated by the act.
Swinburn said preliminary department studies of Maine, Pennsylvannia and New York show small towns are not having any trouble getting service. Investigators in Nevada and Oregon found no service cuts to small shippers, he said.
Deregulation, he said in prepared testimony, has relieved carriers of burdensome regulations such as circuitous routes and commodity restrictions. The result, he said, is better efficiency and reduced fuel and other costs, both of which are ultimately passed on to the consumer.
Swinburn said while the department counted 322 formal bankruptcies by motor carriers in 1980, compared to only 186 the year before, the higher total also reflects the recent recession, the inclusion of single-truck owner-operators and a preference by small operators to go bankrupt rather than sell their operating rights.
'Overall, shippers are satisfied with the level of service they are receiving,' said Acting Interstate Commerce Commission Chairman Marcus Alexis. 'Since the act became law ... complaint levels have been lower in eight of the ten months through April than they were in the same month the previous year.'
He agreed service to small towns has generally improved. An ICC report found that 13.1 percent of small communities surveyed said more service was available after the act, 85.2 percent said service was unchanged and only 1.7 percent said service had deteriorated. Complaints from small communities had dropped to half the pre-act levels, he said.
Despite the recession, Alexis said, the industry is 'sound and viable' and it seems 'to be stronger than in previous periods of recession.' He noted that the stock price of many trucking firms increased from July 1980 to May.
