The trucking industry plays a crucial part in delivering America’s goods to each and every doorstep, and the 11 Most Profitable Trucking Companies In America are some of the primary institutions through which the products you need are brought to you.
For many years, the publication Transport Topics has kept track of how each trucking company has fared with regards to revenue and income. This newspaper of the trucking and freight transportation industries covers common and contract freight carriers operating in the United States and Canada. Based on this in-depth coverage of Transport Topics on the trucking segment, the publication has ranked each company based on how well they performed financially each year, as well as providing information on how many employees, tractors, and trailers each company possessed.
As for the general trucking industry, Transport Topics interviewed executives from companies regarding their prospects for the coming years. The executives expressed concerns for how added safety and environmental regulations will affect their businesses. According to executives, the recent federal mandates for the use of electronic logs to keep track of driver hours and regulatory initiatives on sleep apnea and driver training could reduce the availability of truck drivers, whose numbers are already dwindling as it is. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, about 70,000 commercial truck and bus drivers have been disqualified since 2014 due to medical problems, while 212,000 out of 8.5 million commercial driving license holders hold temporary licenses. Other causes for concern for these executives include new trucking technology and changes in shipping patterns.
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This ranking of the most profitable trucking companies in the U.S is based on the Transport Topics list on the most recent “Top 100 For Hire Carriers.” The rankings on that list are based on the amount of revenue that each company earned in 2015. But for this list of the most profitable trucking companies in America, we have ordered these top performers in accordance to their net income in 2016.
The difference between revenue and income for trucking companies can be wildly different. There are companies that earned huge revenue but also incurred net losses or ended up with tepid income. For instance, XPO Logistics Inc (NYSE:XPO) has the third-highest revenuesamong the top 100 for-hire truckers (at $14.6 billion), but it registered paltry net income of $69.0 million. Meanwhile, YRC Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ:YRCW) took home $4.7 billion in revenue, good for sixth place among top grossers, but only had $21.5 million of net income to show for it.
Given that, here is the ranking of the 11 most profitable trucking companies in America, based on 2016 revenue and net income, beginning on the second page. For further travel and freight-related reading, don’t miss the 11 Most Profitable Airlines In The World: Will It Last?
