by Women In Trucking Staff, on Sep 01, 2026
The latest operational-cost study conducted by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) finds expenses climbing across nearly every major category, while profitability remains thin and fleets continue to make difficult decisions about capacity, staffing and compensation.
The cost of keeping a truck on the road has never been higher.
ATRI’s newly released 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking found that the average cost of operating a truck reached $2.336 per mile in 2025, up 3.4% from the previous year and the highest per-mile cost recorded in the study’s history.
Perhaps even more telling is what happened when fuel was removed from the equation. Non-fuel operating costs increased 4.2% to $1.854 per mile, underscoring the breadth of the financial pressures facing motor carriers.
For trucking companies that are members of the Women In Trucking Association and the professionals responsible for managing their people, equipment and operations, the findings illustrate just how difficult the current operating environment remains.
Costs Rise Across the Board
ATRI found increases across every major operating-cost category during 2025. The largest percentage increases occurred in tolls, up 13.2%; repair and maintenance, up 8.6%; driver benefits, up 6.6%; and tires, up 6.4%. Only fuel and driver pay increased at rates below inflation.
The maintenance increase is particularly significant as fleets attempt to get more productivity out of existing equipment. ATRI found that the average age of trucks increased, as did annual mileage, as carriers navigated high equipment prices and soft freight demand.
Fleet size also influenced equipment investment. Small fleets spent less on trucks and trailers in 2025 than they had the previous year, while truckload carriers operating more than 1,000 trucks increased equipment spending by 16.1%.
Early 2026 data indicate that many of these cost trends are continuing.
Fleets Make Difficult Cuts
Rising costs are only one side of the equation. Carriers also have been operating in an extended period of weak freight demand and stagnant rates.
In response, the industry made its largest reduction in freight capacity since the freight recession began in 2022. Participating carriers reduced truck counts by 2.4%, while an average of another 10% of trucks remained unseated.
Companies also continued trimming overhead. ATRI found that non-driver staffing levels declined 7.8% during 2025.
Those numbers have an important workforce implication. When margins tighten, companies inevitably scrutinize labor costs, staffing levels, benefits and productivity. Yet cutting too deeply can create longer-term challenges when freight demand returns and carriers once again need qualified drivers, technicians, operations professionals and managers.
Driver compensation provides an interesting example. Driver pay was one of only two major expense categories that grew at a rate below inflation in 2025, while the cost of driver benefits increased 6.6%.
For employers focused on attracting and retaining talent — including women in professional driving and other transportation careers — the challenge becomes balancing immediate cost pressures against the longer-term need to remain a competitive employer.
Profitability Remains Thin
Despite aggressive cost controls, profitability remained weak.
ATRI reported that operating margins for both truckload and refrigerated carriers remained below 1% in 2025, despite improving slightly. Tank carriers averaged a 4% operating margin, while flatbed carriers recorded an average operating loss of 0.5%. Only less-than-truckload carriers and fleets operating more than 1,000 trucks produced what ATRI characterized as healthy margins, and those margins remained flat year over year.
The findings continue a difficult multiyear trend. ATRI's previous study found that average operating margins in 2024 were below 2% in every sector except LTL, with the truckload sector posting an average operating margin of negative 2.3%.
There are, however, signs that the freight environment may finally be improving.
“Freight rates are finally turning a corner in 2026, but the acceleration of industry-wide costs means that fleets must continue with aggressive cost discipline,” says Chad Marsilio, Chief Operating Officer of PGT Trucking Inc., in announcing the findings. PGT Trucking is a corporate member of WIT.
The Workforce Challenge Behind the Numbers
For trucking leaders, ATRI's findings ultimately are about more than dollars per mile. They illustrate the difficult decisions companies face when managing their most important resources — including their workforce.
The industry has spent years confronting driver availability, retention and the need to broaden the talent pool. Economic pressure doesn't make those workforce priorities disappear. In fact, it may make them more important.
Carriers that emerge strongest from the current freight cycle will need experienced drivers, technicians, dispatchers, safety professionals and leaders capable of supporting growth when demand accelerates. Maintaining an environment where talented employees see opportunities to build careers and advance — even when budgets are tight — therefore becomes a business consideration as much as a workforce one.
That is particularly relevant as trucking continues its efforts to attract and retain more women. Compensation matters, but so do benefits, predictable working conditions, career development, advancement opportunities and whether employees believe their organization is investing in their future. Many of these employer characteristics that help Redefining the Road, WIT’s official magazine, to identify and rank Top Companies for Women to Work in Trucking.
ATRI's latest numbers demonstrate how difficult that investment can become when virtually every other operating expense is moving higher.
The question for fleet leaders isn't simply where can costs be cut? Increasingly, it's where can costs be controlled without compromising the people, equipment and capabilities the organization will need when the market recovers?
As freight rates begin showing signs of improvement in 2026, answering that question may prove critical to which carriers are best positioned for the next stage of the freight cycle.
Download a copy of ATRI's 2026 Operational Costs of Trucking research.
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