Truck drivers protested and went on strike at the port of Shanghai in April to demand that the government do something about rising fuel costs. The strike comes against a backdrop of rising consumer prices and fuel price increases. The drivers are also angry about new fees charged by private warehouse operators, which they say sharply cut into their profits. The Shanghai municipal government promised to cut the fees. The challenges that trucking pose to China’s USD1.5 trillion a year in exports are still in place ― and could become even greater, now that huge factories have begun relocating to poorer, inland regions to save on labor costs. Mark Millar, a China logistics expert at M Power Associates in Hong Kong, sees Chinese trucking as “a seriously fragmented and brutally competitive industry.” “Most of the drivers are owner-operators, and in order to make money, they carry more cargo than the truck is supposed to hold,” Millar said. “This is obviously not a healthy model.” The New York Times reported that transporting goods by truck in China is relatively more expensive than doing so in the United States. According to the American Trucking Associations, moving goods by truck in the United States costs about USD1.75 per mile. That includes driver salaries, truck leases, insurance, tolls and many other related costs. By comparison, trucking costs in China’s two biggest export regions ― the Yangtze River Delta region near Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta around Hong Kong ― are USD2.50 to USD3 a mile. That is despite low pay to Chinese drivers, who might earn only USD0.25 an hour, versus about USD17 an hour in the United States.

The new “Regulation on the Protection of Road Safety” will make it possible to punish drivers more severely than in the past if they are caught overloading their trucks. The new rules will take effect in July. It is the first administrative regulation to target protecting the nation’s road network since the current “Regulation of Highway Management” was issued in 1987. Truck drivers who break the legal limit on how much freight they can carry three times in a year will lose their business license, and transportation companies will be banned from operating if one-tenth of their vehicles are found to be overloaded. The Ministry of Transport also said the new law offers tough penalties for manufacturers and dealers who produce or sell cars and trucks with illegal load capacities. In addition, inspections of trucks will be strengthened in places where coal, cement and other bulk cargos are collected and distributed. China’s roads have long suffered from extra wear and tear because of illegally overloaded trucks. The traffic authorities have said inspectors found 80% of trucks were overloaded. Cui Zhongfu, Secretary General of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, told China Daily that trucks are being overloaded partly because highway and bridge tolls in China are too high for transportation companies, sometimes accounting for as much as 20% of total expenses.

China’s diesel shortage paralyzed traffic on several expressways in northwest China in November, with trucks waiting in long queues to fill their fuel tanks. At one time, more than 1,000 trucks were stranded at the border of Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces.

Many truck drivers had to wait for hours to buy rationed diesel on November 7 as shortages blamed on a government energy conservation campaign and possible hoarding by state oil companies disrupted industry and trade. Supplies ran low after thousands of factories bought diesel generators to cope with power cuts imposed by authorities to meet energy-saving goals. That boosted already strong demand for fuel amid rapid economic growth and complaints that major suppliers are withholding diesel to pressure Beijing to raise government-set retail prices. One driver said that what should have been a three-day trip from Chongqing to Yunnan province stretched to five days, as he had to stop six times for a partial tank of fuel. “In one place the filling station ran out, so I had to wait overnight until they had diesel again the next day,” he said. Diesel supplies were already tighter than usual after refineries shut down in August and September for maintenance and demand from farmers and fishermen rose, said Tom Reed, Asia Energy Editor at Argus Media. Fuel shortages were reported from Dalian in the northeast to Kunming in the southwest, the South China Morning Post reports.

At the end of August thousands of vehicles were trapped in a traffic jam stretching more than 100 kilometers on the highway from Inner Mongolia to Beijing. The traffic jam began on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks and compounded by road maintenance works. Normal traffic was restored only on August 23. Four days later, another 30 km traffic jam appeared, which later grew to about 120 km. Experts blamed the recent jams on fast urbanization and overstretched infrastructure. Minister of Transport Li Shenglin has proposed building a new road near Beijing to ease bottlenecks on highways connecting Beijing with Inner Mongolia and Tibet. A 25 km auxiliary road near Beijing could ease traffic along the busiest section of National Highway No 110. The report said the Ministry would press local governments to accelerate construction of a 150 km expressway in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province. The Hebei government was also studying a plan to build a railway line specifically to transport coal from Inner Mongolia to other parts of the country. The Zhangjiakou Road Transportation Bureau said the area had endured massive traffic jams since 2005. In the most serious case, 100,000 people were stranded in 30,000 vehicles for up to 34 days. More than 60% of Inner Mongolia’s coal is carried by trucks because the weak railroad network can handle only 40%. The best solution to avoid traffic jams in the future would be to optimize road and railway networks.