Q&A: Phil Byrd, CEO of Bulldog Hiway Express

Logistics Management Group News Editor Jeff Berman recently spoke with Phil Byrd. Byrd is well-accomplished in the trucking sector, as a past chairman of the American Trucking Association, the head of the Daseke Leadership Council, and currently the CEO of one of Daseke’s operating companies, Bulldog Hiway Express. Byrd is also past chairman of the South Carolina Trucking Association, South Carolina Maritime Association, and American Transportation Research Institute’s Advisory Board. He has helped lead Bulldog Hiway Express to earn safety awards such as the 2016 Fleet Safety Award and Fleet Safety Zero Accident Award from the Specialized Carriers and Rigging Association along with three Grand Safety Awards in South Carolina.

Berman and Byrd discussed various topics, including transportation infrastructure and related legislation and the driver shortage situation, among others. Their conversation follows below.

Logistics Management (LM): How do you view the current state of transportation infrastructure, given your leadership roles in the trucking industry and also the American Trucking Associations?

Phil Byrd: This is an issue that I have had a great deal of passion about for a long time. I previously served two terms as Chairman of the South Carolina Trucking Association before I got involved as Chairman of the ATA. All the while, highway infrastructure has been near and dear to my heart, not just as a business owner or a CEO. It impacts our profitability, safety, lifestyle, productivity, and everything we do. It drives up the costs of every good we consume or purchase. There are so many reasons that we, as Americans, and as an industry need to get behind a meaningful highway infrastructure plan that stabilizes the Highway Trust Fund [HTF]. Congress has kicked this can and ball down the road for far too long. I live about 40 miles west of Charleston, SC, and over the last number of decades I could almost measure the length of time that my commute has increased. I can also tell you that the highways have just not been maintained. Through ATRI (American Transportation Research Institute) and ATA (American Trucking Associations) research, we know a great deal about the cost and effect of an improperly maintained highway infrastructure system, both from a maintenance standpoint and from a capacity standpoint. And we know that $1,600 a year in additional costs, for maintenance and congestion for every four-wheel passenger vehicle that travels on our congested highway system…could have been used by many families in 2020 and now in the Covid era. What we also know is that about 65,000 bridges have either been closed to commercial traffic or been posted with load weight limits on them that affect our industry, goods, consumption, and costs.    

LM: Prior to the election, the FAST (Fixing America’s Surface Transportation) Act was extended through September 30, 2021. By the time the extension ends, what would be the best outcome for a new long-term bill’s prospects and what are some of the things you would like to see included in that legislation?

Byrd: The ATA has put forward the Build America Fund proposal, which is a good plan. It increases the federal fuel tax by $0.05 per year over four years, and it indexes the fund to keep up with inflation, costs, and improvement in fuel efficiency so we can replenish the current HTF at a decent rate. This plan would raise about $340 million over a ten-year span, and it would only cost the average passenger car vehicle operating on the highway system about $2.00 per week. We have put forward this plan and are already paying a substantial portion of motor vehicle tax bill through our diesel purchases and are asking to pay more, because we understand it and live with it. Highway congestion adds nearly $75 billion to the costs of freight transportation each year. If we can somehow solve this problem and reduce the costs of freight transportation by $75 billion, wouldn’t that show up on the shelves of every retail store for every commodity that we buy as consumers in America?

LM: What about some of the freight-specific aspects of a new bill for things like corridor development that may currently be lacking?

Byrd: Stabilizing the HTF is a big deal. I would just like to see a plan move forward, in which the backbone of our Congress would come together in some bipartisan measure to fund and stabilize the HTF so that we put monies back into our highway system maintenance that would reduce costs for passenger and commercial vehicle operators. It would save lives, because we could build safety components into our highway infrastructure system. At some point, in the future, I would like to see a smart highway system developed. Back in the Eisenhower era, there was a vision that saw a national interstate system that would link all major communities and states together, not only for convenience purposes but also for security purposes and security and transportation and logistics services, too, and moving commercial goods around the nation in a more efficient, profitable, and safe manner. There was a vision, and we need Congress today to develop a vision for infrastructure, and we need a smart highway system taking to smart, technically-advanced vehicles that engage braking and lane departure technology, saves lives and reduces accidents and drives insurance costs down. The last year with data on the idling of commercial vehicles was 2016, and we know that for our industry, truck drivers sat in traffic and congestion for about $1.2 billion hours, which is the equivalent of about 425,000 drivers sitting idle for one full year. The environmental impact alone in that scenario costs both the industry and America is staggering. Fuel consumption alone just from idling added around 6.8-to-6.9 billion gallons of fuel in 2016 while we idled for 1.2 billion hours. We put about 67.3 million tons of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result of congested highways. Congress needs to address this problem. We have the statistics, and we know the facts and the cause and effect of not maintaining a highway system, not expanding a highway system, and not advancing it, from a technology standpoint. We also know that over the next decade we are going to move about 30% more freight on our trucks than we do today. That is where the vision comes in, in my mind…40% of all commercial freight moves on Class 8 vehicles on our interstate system.

LM: Why do you think things are so stagnant, when it comes to Congress getting more done on the infrastructure front?

Byrd: We have to get both side of the aisle to address the issue. When we know that the HTF has a gap of $30 billion per year just to maintain our current funding levels, not even to have a vision about how we advance and develop smart highway infrastructure. You have to say Congress has blinders on for both sides of the aisle. We need to come together and have a backbone and not worry about putting on an additional fee or tax to constituents, with constituents like me sitting in traffic. I can remember when my commute was 40 minutes. The whole commute is on an interstate, and the whole commute now has gone from about 40 minutes so about an hour and ten minutes each way. I am willing to pay, because my time is valuable.

LM: Shifting gears to the drive side, how do you view the current state of driver turnover? Are things still viewed as an uphill battle for driver recruitment?

Byrd: There is no doubt about it, and it is significantly so. Driver recruitment and retention are likely the biggest challenge that we have as an industry, both today and into the immediate future. The demographics just don’t play well for us right now. When you look at the seated trucks today from a demographical standpoint…if you are running a trucking company, you should be concerned. We need a better way to attract good people into this industry and need to be concerned about how they are treated and respected throughout the supply chain, from start to finish, from the regulatory, corporate, and commercial sides. They need to be treated with the highest regards and respect. This industry needs to open its eyes…in order to attract the very best. We have to compete with everybody. There is a lifestyle issue, with drivers not at home every night and are away delivering America’s goods. These are heroes of America. Everybody that gets to go home at night and enjoy a nice meal and be home and enjoy their families and life owe that to a truck driver. We need to do a better job at communicating that significant role, that vital role, America’s truck drivers play. And we need to build this industry up.

LM: How can the sector get more young people interested in becoming drivers?

Byrd: Sitting in the cab of a truck today is like sitting in the cockpit of an aircraft. It is just full of electronics, and young people love that kind of environment and excel in that kind of environment. We have not done an adequate job of explaining that it is the evolution of what trucking is today. But there are still those issues of being away from home, and I tell my people all the time that everything we do has to be geared towards treating the driver with the upmost respect. They have to earn, incentivize, and be benefitted in a very competitive way but more than anything they need to be appreciated and shown and demonstrated every day with every communication sent out…and every experience needed to demonstrate respect and appreciation, because we cannot survive without them. The driver situation is critical and Covid has not helped us.