This week’s guest is Dr. Alex Leslie, Senior Research Associate at the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), a not-for-profit research arm for the trucking industry. Alex is the lead author on ATRI’s latest research publication “Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2025 Update”. Using detailed polling and data analysis, Alex is able to reveal not only the current average per mile costs, but also changes in the individual cost components, the impact of carrier size on costs and underlying trends in trucking activities. In our conversation, we discuss the report in detail and try to understand changes year over year - as well as what to expect going forward. In the conversation, we discuss the deceleration of overall operational costs due to falling fuel prices, contrasted with rising non-fuel costs like truck and trailer payments, which are nearing the cost of fuel. The conversation also addresses driver wages and benefits, the shrinking of fleet sizes by carriers in response to a prolonged freight recession, and the challenges of forecasting market shifts given current economic and geopolitical uncertainties. Following my conversation with Alex, I will provide the truckload market update. So let’s get started . . .