Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/740514
Cover Story 42 November 2016 BestDriverJOBS www.bestdriverjobs.com retention. Kenworth Marketing Direc- tor Kurt Swihart says there are plenty of premium features – like audio and satellite radio, premium seats, televi- sion packages and upgraded mattresses – available on smaller sleepers to make them more comfortable. Added size means added flexibility For fleets willing to hang on to them, larger sleepers also offer greater flexibility for fleets tasked with longer hauls on a sporadic basis. "A fleet that has a vehicle set up for long haul can still do regional haul with those vehicles, especially for back hauls," Gilligan notes. "It just gives them more flexibility in deployment." "We find that interest in smaller-dis- placement engines and smaller sleep- ers have resulted from denser freight, reshored manufacturing and changing freight movement patterns," Swihart adds. "Freight is becoming denser as shippers load heavier items and more pallets per trailer. To accommodate those denser loads, trucking companies gener- ally have two choices: choose lighter weight specifications for their trucks so that each unit can carry more freight or add more trucks to carry the loads." Gilligan says the historical average of sleeper orders versus day cab orders is mostly unchanged in the last decade. "For a regional-haul spec, which tradi- tionally is going to be a smaller sleeper or a day cab, we're really not seeing a lot of change," Gilligan says, adding sleeper order volumes year-to-date have been flat on a recent month-to-month ba- sis. "As of April 2016, [International's] split for sleepers is 48 percent and split for day cabs is 52 percent." For all OEs, the split is 46 percent sleepers and 54 percent day cabs, in- cluding severe service, according to ACT Research. "We haven't really seen that change in 10 years," Gilligan adds. "We're seeing a con- sistent amount of day cab versus sleeper split over time." Mary Aufdemberg, Freightliner Trucks' director of product marketing, says the company's largest sleeper is still its most common spec. "For on-highway heavy-duty ap- plications, we haven't seen an increase in the number of smaller sleepers," she says, "and the 72-inch BBC Freight- liner Cascadia Evolution spec'd with a Detroit DD15 downsped engine remains our most popular product."