Why is trucking not a natural monopoly?

[XemaSab]

Driving from Redding to Sacramento and back I see a lot of trucks, and it seems like there are hundreds if not thousands of carriers out there.

Why does the market support so many different carriers, instead of naturally gravitating towards a few large carriers much as other shipping industries have done?

I can understand why WalMart and Safeway and Carl's Junior and other really large regional or national chains have their own trucking lines, but what are the influences keeping Frank's Trucking from Williams from buying out Joe's Trucking from Colusa, planning trips more efficiently and saving administrative costs?

Anyone care to shed some light on this?

[Posteritatis]

1. It's probably easier to get into that than rail, air or maritime shipping,

Lots more room for churning at the bottom/local level.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Trucking is not a natural monopoly; roads are.

Anybody with a truck can go into the trucking business.

[BzaDem]

3. The barriers to entry are not that high compared to, say, public utilities.

They do exist (as you point out, having more trucks means the ability to plan trips more efficiently), but they are not nearly as insurmountable as the barriers to becoming a public utility company. In particular, there is significant added cost to significantly increasing business, whereas for other natural monopolies, fixed costs dominate the marginal cost of serving a new customer.

Antitrust law would not allow them all to consolidate as you propose.

[XemaSab]

4. Thanks

:)

[Taitertots]

5. Economies of Scale

Not being in the trucking sector I don't have the relevant data to prove this, but it is a more than reasonable assumption.

No limits to entry in the market, another good assumption.

[madrchsod]

6. trucking was one of the first to be deregulated

small trucking companies and independents are the majority in the industry.

[applegrove]

7. deregulation causes mid sized firm to disappear. what is left are a few huge corporations

and a whole lotta small firms. Same thing happened in the airline industry.