Washington – American Trucking Associations Technology and Maintenance Council and Decib Corporationannounced that combined parts and labor costs declined 1.7% in the first quarter of 2024, according to data released in the latest Decisiv/TMC North American Service Event Benchmark Report.
“The reductions in parts and labor costs are good news for fleet management companies that have endured significant price increases over the past few years,” said TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell. “This important parts and labor cost analysis report is an excellent tool to help council members see how their operations compare to industry trends and plan accordingly.”
According to the report, costs across the 25 major VMRS systems continued the 1.4% downward trend seen in the previous quarter. Reversing the upward trend seen early last year, only seven of the 25 VMRS systems saw their combined quarterly parts and labor costs increase, about 50% less than the 13 systems saw in the previous quarter.
Reflecting data from the report, parts costs increased for seven systems and labor costs increased for 12 systems, but overall cost declines were evident for both parts and labor: In the first quarter, parts costs decreased 2.4%, marking the second consecutive quarter of declines, and labor costs decreased 0.8% after two consecutive quarters of increases.
Compared to the same period last year, overall costs also decreased, down 2.3% compared to the same period last year, while labor costs increased 0.9% compared to the same period last year, a significant decrease from the 4.0% increase in the previous quarterly report.
“While commercial asset services operations are realizing cost savings across the board with more new trucks and improved parts availability, there is an ongoing shortage of new technicians joining the workforce and labor costs continue to rise,” said Dick Hyatt, president and CEO of Decisiv. “The recent survey results are certainly encouraging, and commercial asset services operations’ ongoing efforts to streamline the management and execution of maintenance and repair activities are clearly helping to reduce costs.”
With the continued influx of new trucks and the resolution of supply chain issues, commercial asset service operations are experiencing significant drops in parts costs, but at the same time, there continues to be a shortage of new technicians joining the workforce, requiring more spending to attract and retain talent from a shrinking workforce, and labor costs continue to rise.
The data Decisiv collects and analyzes for the Decisiv/TMC North American Service Event Benchmark Report on 25 vehicle maintenance reporting standard system level codes represents more than 97% of the total parts and labor costs for more than 300,000 maintenance and repair events each month across more than 7 million assets and more than 5,000 service locations.
ATA’s Technical and Maintenance Committee issues reports to its fleet members that are organized by VMRS-coded vehicle system and geographic location based on the Committee’s Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards.
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Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in numerous newspapers, books and magazines around the world and is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia area.
