Traffic congestion imposed an estimated $108.8 billion in additional operating costs on the U.S. trucking industry in 2022, according to the American Transportation Research Institute. The figure was the highest in ATRI’s congestion-cost series and represented a 15 percent increase from $94.6 billion in 2021.

The increase did not come from trucks spending more time in traffic. In fact, ATRI estimated that total congestion hours declined in 2022. The bigger factor was the rapidly rising cost of operating a truck. Fuel, equipment, maintenance and driver expenses all made an hour of delay considerably more expensive than it had been a year earlier.

That distinction is important. The $108.8 billion is an estimate of the operating cost associated with highway congestion, rather than a tally of revenue that trucking companies reported losing.

ATRI estimated that trucks experienced about 1.20 billion hours of congestion-related delay in 2022, down 5.4 percent from 1.27 billion hours in 2021. The organization linked the reduction partly to a softer freight market during the second half of the year, along with modest changes in truck volumes and highway speeds.

Average truck speeds at the congestion locations analyzed by ATRI rose from 51.95 miles per hour in 2021 to 52.41 miles per hour in 2022, another sign that congestion itself had eased slightly by this measure.

Federal Highway Administration data also show that U.S. combination trucks traveled 195.049 billion vehicle miles in 2022. That figure measures the total distance traveled by combination trucks nationwide and is one of the types of traffic-volume data incorporated into ATRI’s congestion methodology.

Yet those improvements were overwhelmed by the rising expense of operating each truck.

ATRI calculated that the average marginal cost of operating a truck reached $90.78 per hour in 2022, up 21.6 percent from the previous year. The increase in hourly operating costs was considerably larger than the decline in congestion hours, pushing the total dollar cost of congestion higher.

The result was an unusual combination. Trucks collectively spent somewhat less time delayed, but every hour of that delay became much more expensive.

ATRI’s calculation brings together three main components. It uses truck speeds, truck traffic volumes and trucking operating costs to estimate how much additional operating time congestion creates and what that time costs carriers.

Speed information comes from ATRI’s large database of truck GPS data. Comparing actual truck speeds with less-congested operating conditions allows researchers to estimate additional travel time associated with congestion.

Traffic volume is measured using combination-truck vehicle miles traveled from the Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Statistics series. These data help determine how many truck miles are exposed to congestion in different geographic areas. FHWA reported 3.24 million registered combination trucks and 195.049 billion vehicle miles traveled by combination trucks in 2022.

ATRI then applies its industry operating-cost benchmarks to the estimated hours of delay. Those benchmarks include marginal expenses such as fuel, driver wages and benefits, repairs and maintenance, truck and trailer payments, insurance, tires, tolls, permits and licenses.

This means the headline number should be understood as a modeled estimate based on traffic and operating-cost data. It is not a survey in which carriers collectively reported $108.8 billion of congestion losses, nor is it equivalent to lost trucking revenue.

Different congestion studies can also produce different totals because they use different networks, definitions and cost assumptions. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2026 National Freight Strategic Plan, for example, notes that published estimates of annual carrier operating costs associated with truck congestion range from about $36 billion to ATRI’s $108.8 billion.

The economics of trucking changed sharply in 2022.

ATRI’s operating-cost research placed the average marginal cost of running a truck at $2.251 per mile, up 21.3 percent from 2021 and above $2 per mile for the first time in that study’s history. On an hourly basis, costs rose 21.6 percent to $90.78.

Fuel was a major contributor. ATRI reported average fuel costs of 64.1 cents per mile in 2022, compared with 41.7 cents in 2021. Driver wages rose to 72.4 cents per mile from 62.7 cents, while truck and trailer lease or purchase costs and repair expenses also increased.

These expenses explain why congestion can become more costly even when the number of hours lost declines. A truck delayed for an hour when diesel, labor and equipment expenses are high imposes a larger cost on its operator than the same delay under lower-cost conditions.

ATRI estimated that the 1.2 billion hours lost during 2022 were equivalent to the annual working time of about 435,000 truck drivers. Spread across registered combination trucks, congestion represented an average cost of $7,588 per truck.

The comparison is intended to illustrate the scale of the lost productive time. It does not mean that 435,000 drivers were literally inactive for an entire year.

The burden was not evenly distributed across the country.

Texas recorded the highest estimated state congestion cost at $9.17 billion, followed by California at $8.77 billion and Florida at $8.44 billion. Together with the other states in ATRI’s top 10, these states accounted for 52 percent of the national congestion cost.

The geographic pattern reflects more than ordinary commuter traffic. Large freight states combine dense metropolitan areas with interstate corridors, ports, distribution centers, manufacturing operations and substantial volumes of long-haul trucking.

At the metropolitan level, New York City had the highest estimated congestion cost at $6.68 billion. Miami followed at $3.20 billion and Chicago at $3.14 billion.

These figures rank metropolitan areas by ATRI’s estimated trucking congestion cost. They are not rankings of overall traffic congestion for all motorists and should not be interpreted as such.

The federal government continues to identify freight congestion around major urban areas and heavily traveled Interstate corridors as an important constraint on the U.S. freight system. The Department of Transportation’s 2026 National Freight Strategic Plan says highway freight congestion is particularly concentrated around large cities and the corridors serving them.

The cost of delay also shows up directly in fuel use.

ATRI estimated that congestion caused trucks to consume more than 6.4 billion additional gallons of diesel in 2022, representing about $32.1 billion in fuel costs. The organization also estimated that the additional fuel consumption produced 65.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

The $32.1 billion fuel estimate should not be added to the $108.8 billion congestion figure. Fuel is already one of the operating-cost components used in ATRI’s broader congestion calculation. Treating the two numbers as separate losses would therefore risk double counting.

The U.S. Department of Transportation repeated the 6.4-billion-gallon estimate in its 2026 National Freight Strategic Plan, illustrating how fuel consumption remains an important part of the economic case for improving freight movement.

The $108.8 billion estimate describes 2022 conditions, and ATRI has not published a newer national Cost of Congestion estimate. Its current congestion research page still lists the December 2024 report, which analyzes costs through 2022, as its latest study in that series. More recent ATRI bottleneck rankings measure traffic conditions using a different methodology and should not be treated as updated versions of the $108.8 billion national cost figure.

More recent operating-cost data nevertheless show that running a truck remains expensive. ATRI reported in July 2026 that the industry-average operating cost reached $2.336 per mile in 2025, up 3.4 percent from 2024 and the highest per-mile figure recorded in its operating-cost series. Excluding fuel, costs increased 4.2 percent to $1.854 per mile.

Those newer figures cannot be used to update the 2022 congestion estimate without rerunning ATRI’s full congestion model. Traffic speeds, truck volumes and geographic patterns would also need to be updated.

They do, however, underline why highway delay carries a significant financial cost for carriers. The expense is not simply the value of fuel burned while a truck moves slowly. Congestion ties up vehicles, drivers and equipment that could otherwise be moving freight.

ATRI’s $108.8 billion estimate therefore captures a broader productivity problem. In 2022, slightly less congestion did not translate into lower costs because trucking had become substantially more expensive to operate. For an industry that depends on turning time and mileage into productive freight movement, the price of delay rose even when the delay itself declined.