Dive Brief:
- Parts and labor costs dropped for a second consecutive quarter, sliding by 1.7% in Q1 compared to Q4, according to the American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council and Decisiv Inc.
- The combined quarter over quarter decrease occurred across 18 of the 25 Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards codes, the groups said in an announcement last week. The decrease followed a 1.4% drop in Q4.
- “While more new trucks and greater parts availability are helping commercial asset service operations realize an across-the-board drop in costs, the ongoing shortage of new technicians entering the workforce continues to drive up labor costs,” Decisiv President and CEO Dick Hyatt said in the announcement.
Dive Insight:
TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell once again described the decrease in costs as “welcome news” for fleets, noting they “have been weathering substantial increases for much of the last several years.”
Parts costs increased in seven systems, and labor costs rose in 12 systems, according to the groups’ North American Service Event Benchmark Report. But overall, parts costs dropped 2.4%, the second quarterly decline in a row, and labor costs fell 0.8%, reversing two straight quarterly increases.
Combined costs fell 2.3% year-over-year, as labor costs increased by 0.9%. The increase was significantly smaller than the 4.0% rise seen in the previous quarterly report, TMC and Decisiv noted.
The findings “are certainly positive,” Hyatt said.
“The ongoing efforts by commercial asset service operations to streamline management and execution of maintenance and repair activities are clearly playing a role in keeping costs down,” Hyatt said.
