Pub2 2021 Issue1

20 Kentucky Trucker F or Rebecca Brewster, President and Chief Operating Officer for the American Transportation Research Institute, the answers to the trucking industry’s most pressing issues are always in the data. For whatever problems she and the organization she leads are trying to solve their motto is to never look further than what the data tells you. Often, that is your best start to finding a solution. This year, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) marks its twentieth year providing research and data analysis that seeks to improve the industry’s safety and productivity, whether it is identifying driver behaviors that lead to future crashes, or how changes to hours-of-service rules impact driver safety and productivity, or a better understanding of how impactful congestion on our nation’s highways is to the country’s economic well-being. ATRI is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit research organization headquartered in Arlington, Va., with offices in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Sacramento, and New York. Its mission is to conduct transportation research with an emphasis on the trucking industry’s essential role as a key part of a safe, efficient and viable transportation system. Focus areas include congestion and mobility; economic analysis; safety and security; technology and operations; environment; (transportation) infrastructure; and more recently, tort reform. The institute’s extensive experience covers a broad range of commercial vehicle operations, including leadership and/or participation in numerous national freight analyses, technology research initiatives and field operational tests. It presently manages the U.S. DOT’s Freight Mobility program and has provided freight mobility and performance measures and technical assistance to 31 state DOTs and 11 of the 15 largest metropolitan planning organizations. For its efforts, ATRI has received top research awards from ITS America, the Trucking Industry Defense Association, the University of Minnesota, and the Institute of Transportation Engineers. For the trucking industry, however, ATRI serves as a powerful ally for shaping and improving the lives of the millions of Americans who earn a living in transportation and logistics. TRUCKING’S DATA MINERS: SHAPING INDUSTRY POLICY WITH INDEPENDENT RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS By Ford Boswell For two decades, the American Transportation Research Institute has performed significant research and data analysis that has served as a jumping-off point for some of trucking’s most critical policy initiatives.