Using the activity and document management platform on Districò’s database, the Italian road transport association Federtrasporti analyzed 82,792 working days to find out how much time HGV drivers in Italy spend waiting.
According to the result, the time truckers wait is equal to 42,000 driving periods per year – almost half of the time they can devote to this activity – reports the Italian transportation portal Transporto Europa.
The calculation is based on the shared set of figures of the tracks coming from the satellite survey and those of the digital tachographs of the vehicles. And so, it has been found that out of a possible daily work of 11.28 hours, on average a driver spends 6.18 hours behind the wheel, 35 minutes with breaks and 4.35 hours with loading and unloading.
As an average loading should not take much longer than half an hour, the remaining 4 hours are spent waiting, the analysis states.
Of course, this is an average and the values vary according to the type of transport and the client. For example, in container road transport, the average daily driving time drops to 5.52 hours.
Based on these figures, the analysis has found that in the 82,792 working days analysed, drivers spend a total of 331,169 hours waiting – equal to 42,000 driving periods of eight hours.
If you monetize the time spent on waiting, it would result in 10 million euros a year (taking an average gross salary of a driver at 50 thousand euros a year). However, the loss of productivity of the vehicle should also be added to this result.
According to Federtrasporti, hauliers could increase their turnover by 15% if this cost could be eliminated.
The transport association sees two ways to reduce the waiting time and therefore the cost. Firstly, loading and unloading points should extend the time window when they accept trucks. Federtrasporti’s research highlights that only one of the five retail depots even considered operating after 1.00 pm.
Second is the imposition of payment of the waiting time by the shipper. This has already been introduced in Portugal, and will enter into force in Spain in September.