The Wild Ride of the US Trucking Industry: From Regulation to Revolution

The US trucking industry might be the perfect case study in how markets transform.

It went from government-controlled to wild west overnight.

Here's the condensed version: regulation → deregulation → innovation → disruption.

But let me break it down, because there are lessons here for every industry.

The Old Guard: Big Companies, Big Unions, Big Profits

Picture the 1970s trucking industry: a cozy oligopoly.

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) controlled everything—who could start a trucking company, what routes they could drive, even what prices they could charge.

Perfect if you were one of the big unionized carriers. Drivers had solid wages, benefits, and predictable schedules. Companies had stable profits without much competition.

Then 1980 happened.

The Motor Carrier Act blew up the entire system. Anyone with a truck and a dream could suddenly enter the game.

The old guard wasn't built for this new reality. High labor costs and rigid operations crushed them. Many of those mammoth unionized carriers went bankrupt within years.

The Innovation Wave: LTL and Intermodal Change Everything

From the chaos emerged two game-changing innovations:

First, less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping. Instead of one shipper per truck, multiple shippers could share space—like carpooling for cargo.

This opened the door for smaller businesses that didn't need entire trailers. Companies like FedEx and UPS turned this model into gold mines.

Second, intermodal transport—the seamless movement of containers between trucks, trains, and ships without unpacking.

When oil prices spiked in the 2000s, this hybrid approach became the cheat code of logistics, combining rail's efficiency with trucking's flexibility.

The Middle-Men Revolution: How Brokerages Took Over

The biggest winners? The matchmakers.

Brokerages—companies that connect shippers with carriers—used to be small players picking up scraps. Now they control 30% of all freight (up from just 6% in the early 2000s).

They achieved this by weaponizing technology and sales while the old guard was sleeping. During COVID-19, their market share exploded.

This transformed the industry's structure. Today, 95% of trucking companies run 10 trucks or fewer. These small operators can't afford fancy tech or sales teams, so they rely on brokerages to find loads.

Meanwhile, big fleet companies are struggling under the weight of overhead costs and outdated business models.

The Future: Autonomous, Electric, and Digitized

The transformation isn't done.

Autonomous trucks are coming. Electric trucks are on the horizon. Digital freight platforms are eating market share.

Companies that embrace these changes will thrive. Those that resist will follow Yellow Corp's path—a trucking giant until 2023, when high labor costs and failure to innovate led to bankruptcy.

The Big Picture

The US trucking industry shows how quickly market structures can transform:

• Government control → free market
• Huge companies → small operators + tech platforms
• Analog processes → digital systems

Every industry faces this kind of transformation eventually. The question isn't if, but when.

Are you positioned to adapt when your industry's 1980 moment arrives?