Longer Combination Trucks

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the economic and safety impacts of expanding longer combination vehicles (LCV) operations, focusing on: (1) LCV effects on highway infrastructure; (2) the potential benefits from and industry's use of LCV; and (3) LCV safety concerns.
GAO found that: (1) expanding LCV use could increase highway maintenance and construction costs by up to $18 billion; (2) infrastructure changes needed due to expanded LCV use include bridge replacements, interchange improvements, and staging areas for LCV assembly; (3) infrastructure costs could be reduced by limiting LCV expansion to carefully selected routes away from major population areas; (4) expanding LCV use would not divert significant amounts of freight from the railroads; (5) nationwide use of LCV on interstate highways would reduce trucking costs by about 3 percent, which would most benefit large companies that combine small shipments; (6) the use of some types of LCV is not likely to increase because of logistics problems and customer demand; (7) LCV have increased stability problems, slower acceleration when merging into traffic, and lower speeds on grades; and (8) LCV have not been a safety problem in low traffic density areas, but expanding LCV use into more congested areas will require careful analysis, stricter driver qualifications, and better monitoring of LCV operations by state authorities.