Where Have All the Vans Gone?

4th October 2021

Great question, we’re not sure we have all the answers, but we’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand. Here’s a brief outline of why the industry can not get enough trailers to satisfy the demand and what Medallion Transport Holdings is doing to help.

Where have all the vans gone?
  1. Labor shortage in manufacturing and driver shortage
    1. US trailer manufacturers are producing less than 50% of capacity because they can not find/hire enough people to build the trailers.
    2. Many suppliers such as steel mills and tire manufacturers are experiencing the same labor shortage creating supply chain gluts of input supplies needed to build trailers
    3. Many of the parts being used to build trailers are manufactured overseas and due to delays with ship lines and ports (both domestic and abroad) the parts are not available to build enough trailers
    4. Because fleets are not able to find drivers many fleets are using considerably more dropped trailers to increase efficiency as well as help their customers get product of manufacturing facilities while waiting for transport
  2. Changes in consumer purchasing habits
    1. Pre-pandemic approximately 1 billion people worldwide made on-line purchases, through August of 2021 more than 2.1 billion people have made on-line purchases. Many of the purchases are also utilizing door-to-door delivery methods. The increased demand for local couriers is drawing more OTR drivers out of industry creating more need for drop and hook units.
  3. Increased demand and decreased availability of new trailers is affecting the rental and used markets
    1. Large fleets typically “turn-over” 20% of their fleet annually because they are not able to acquire new trailers, they are keeping the old trailers longer and in addition many large fleets have started purchasing used trailers and running a larger percentage of rental trailers

There are many more in-depth reasons for the shortage, this is just a few of the larger items. At MTH we are working everyday looking for more equipment to satisfy your needs. We have brought on new vendors as well as committed to purchasing trailers for our fleet to offset the demand of our rental vendors.