Waits and Delays in Road Freight Transport

This paper studies waits and delays in the trucking industry of a developing country: Colombia. We follow 186,000 longhaul trips over 926 routes between 2015 and 2019, using GPS devices located in trucks. We find that waits, rather than periods when the truck is moving, are the largest drivers of travelntimes: on average, trucks spend 38% of their travel time movingn between origin and destination, 38% parked at the side of the road, and 24% parked before or after the trip. Furthermore, waiting time accounts for 82% of the variation in travel times across trips, whereas moving time only explains 18%. Overall, the cost of waits amounts to 46% of freight rates, whereas the cost of delays amounts to 7%. Most of the cost of delays is generated during waits, rather than when the truck is moving. Shipper, carrier, truck and driver characteristics, as well as the day of the week and the hour of the day in which loading and unloading occurs, explain 35% of the variation in waiting times across trips. There are large potential gains from reducing waiting times and delays through capacity building and optimization.