IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/10775.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Geographic Imbalance, Search Frictions, and Regulation : Causes of Empty Miles in Freight Trucking

Author

Listed:
  • Yang,Ron Nan

Abstract

How prevalent are empty miles in freight trucking markets, and what are the economic frictions that contribute to empty miles This study collected estimates of empty trips, empty miles, and backhaul probabilities from the economics and transportation literature, covering 40 years and 27 countries. A meta-analysis provides an average empty mile share of 29 percent, with significant variation across settings. High-income countries tend to have lower shares of empty miles than low- and middle-income countries. This study reviews empirical evidence behind three potential mechanisms behind empty trips, geographic imbalances in freight demand, search and matching frictions, and regulatory barriers, and develops a stylized model to capture these sources and evaluate potential policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang,Ron Nan, 2024. "Geographic Imbalance, Search Frictions, and Regulation : Causes of Empty Miles in Freight Trucking," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10775, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10775
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099308205162416769/pdf/IDU13a832572156cb144151a0da19bc635c5cd88.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Megersa Abate, 2014. "Determinants of Capacity Utilisation in Road Freight Transportation," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 48(1), pages 137-152, January.
    2. Richard Beilock & Richard L. Kilmer, 1986. "The Determinants of Full-Empty Truck Movements," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 68(1), pages 67-76.
    3. Demirel, Erhan & Ommeren, Jos van & Rietveld, Piet, 2010. "A matching model for the backhaul problem," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 549-561, May.
    4. Nicholas Buchholz, 2022. "Spatial Equilibrium, Search Frictions, and Dynamic Efficiency in the Taxi Industry," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(2), pages 556-591.
    5. Behrens, Kristian & Picard, Pierre M., 2011. "Transportation, freight rates, and economic geography," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 280-291.
    6. Philippe Barla & Denis Bolduc & Nathalie Boucher & Jonathan Watters, 2010. "Information technology and efficiency in trucking," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 43(1), pages 254-279, February.
    7. Guillaume R. Fréchette & Alessandro Lizzeri & Tobias Salz, 2019. "Frictions in a Competitive, Regulated Market: Evidence from Taxis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2954-2992, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ron Yang, 2022. "(Don’t) Take Me Home: Home Preference and the Effect of Self-Driving Trucks on Interstate Trade," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Artificial Intelligence, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Farren, Dario & Giesen, Ricardo & Rizzi, Luis Ignacio, 2024. "The economics of empty trips," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    3. Jota Ishikawa & Nori Tarui, 2015. "Backfiring with backhaul problems: Trade and Industrial Policies with Endogenous Transport Costs," Working Papers 201514, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    4. Hayato Kanayama & Suguru Otani, 2024. "Nonparametric Estimation of Matching Efficiency and Elasticity in a Spot Gig Work Platform: 2019-2023," Papers 2412.19024, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2025.
    5. Tsubota, Kenmei, 2015. "Agglomeration and directional imbalance of freight rates : the role of density economies in the transport sector," IDE Discussion Papers 488, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    6. Felix L. Friedt & Wesley W. Wilson, 2020. "Trade, transport costs and trade imbalances: An empirical examination of international markets and backhauls," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 592-636, May.
    7. Boffa, Federico & Fedele, Alessandro & Iozzi, Alberto, 2023. "Congestion and incentives in the age of driverless fleets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    8. Giulia Brancaccio & Myrto Kalouptsidi & Theodore Papageorgiou, 2023. "The impact of oil prices on world trade," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 444-463, May.
    9. Roman Zakharenko, 2024. "Who should not share? The merits of withholding unused vehicles," Working Papers 2024_07, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    10. Ishikawa, Jota & Tarui, Nori, 2018. "Backfiring with backhaul problems," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 81-98.
    11. Li, Xinwei & Ke, Jintao & Yang, Hai & Wang, Hai & Zhou, Yaqian, 2024. "An aggregate matching and pick-up model for mobility-on-demand services," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    12. Abate, Megersa & de Jong, Gerard, 2014. "The optimal shipment size and truck size choice – The allocation of trucks across hauls," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 262-277.
    13. Yoshifumi Konishi & Akari Ono, 2024. "Is Ride-sharing Good for Environment?," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2024-014, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    14. Lehe, Lewis & Pandey, Ayush, 2022. "Taxi service with heterogeneous drivers and a competitive medallion market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    15. Jessica Fong, 2024. "Effects of Market Size and Competition in Two-Sided Markets: Evidence from Online Dating," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(5), pages 971-985, September.
    16. Giulia Brancaccio & Myrto Kalouptsidi & Theodore Papageorgiou, 2020. "Geography, Transportation, and Endogenous Trade Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 657-691, March.
    17. Vignon, Daniel & Yin, Yafeng & Ke, Jintao, 2023. "Regulating the ride-hailing market in the age of uberization," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    18. Yingjie Zhang & Beibei Li & Ramayya Krishnan, 2020. "Learning Individual Behavior Using Sensor Data: The Case of Global Positioning System Traces and Taxi Drivers," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1301-1321, December.
    19. Kristian Behrens & W. Mark Brown & Théophile Bougna, 2018. "The World Is Not Yet Flat: Transport Costs Matter!," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(4), pages 712-724, October.
    20. Sergio H. Lence & GianCarlo Moschini & Fabio Gaetano Santeramo, 2018. "Threshold cointegration and spatial price transmission when expectations matter," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(1), pages 25-39, January.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10775. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.