Trucking industry revenues jumped to $796.7 billion in 2018, up from $700.1 billion in the previous year, according to American Trucking Associations’ annual ATA American Trucking Trends 2019 report.

“2018 was a year of dynamic growth for the trucking industry,” said Bob Costello, ATA chief economist. “'Trends' is a simple, one-stop resource to see where our industry is so executives and policymakers can make informed decisions about where it is going.”

In 2018, trucks moved 11.49 billion tons of freight -- 71.4% of the nation’s tonnage freight -- with trucking revenues accounting for 80.3% of the nation’s freight bill.

Cross-border trade with Mexico and Canada played a huge role in trucking’s success for the year. Trucks moved 67.4% of surface freight between the U.S. and Canada, and 83.5% of cross-border trade with Mexico, with a 3.6% and 10.2% increase in each sector respectively from 2017.

Trucking was also a major source of U.S. employment, with 7.8 million people working in trucking-related jobs. Of that total, 3.5 million were truck drivers. Women made up 6.6% of drivers and minorities accounted for 40.4% of the truck driving workforce.

By and large, most carriers are still small companies, ATA found. Fleets with six or fewer trucks make up 91.3% of all fleets. Increase that number to 20 trucks and small fleets make up 97.4% of fleets.

“ATA believes good decisions are based on good data, and 'Trend' is full of strong data, which is why it finds a home on the desks of elected officials, regulators and executives across the supply chain,” said Chris Spear, ATA president and CEO.

 ATA makes the full report available for purchase here.