Forget business taxes, rising health costs, even workers’ compensation. If you are running a business that revolves around moving goods and services by truck to remote locations, your biggest nemesis may just be traffic. Freeway congestion, a problem for years, has crept up to new proportions, and now, coupled with the more recent rise in fuel costs, has become a central theme in business owners’ management woes. “My fuel bill has literally doubled from last year,” said Ron Feinstein, president and CEO of All Valley Washer Service Inc. in Van Nuys. “Not only has the fuel doubled, but there’s added fuel costs because the vehicles are sitting in traffic. So we’re getting less miles, higher fuel costs and less production from employees.” Sitting in traffic along the Ventura Freeway may be frustrating for workers commuting to the office, but it’s anathema to the small business owner trying to control costs, service customers and manage workers. Besides the increased cost of fuel, traffic means higher payroll costs because more workers and overtime wages are often required to meet production schedules, and higher payrolls also mean higher workers’ compensation premiums. Then there’s the scheduling nightmare, complete with different traffic patterns on different freeways, each requiring different strategies. And if all that is not enough to contend with, consider the added maintenance required to service trucks that now need new brakes along with other parts far more frequently than ever before. “I haven’t calculated how much more we’re paying in overtime,” said Barry Gump, president and CEO of Andy Gump Inc., a provider of temporary site services like portable toilets and fencing for construction sites, based in Santa Clarita. “I think sometimes it’s enough that you’re scared to look it up. If you’re doing business in Southern California, traffic is a major factor determining what your costs are.” It’s not news to anyone that Los Angeles has for some time now ranked No. 1 in the nation in travel delays. The annual delay rush hour travelers endure in the Southern California region has grown from 47 hours in 1982 to 104 hours in 2002, according to the most recent figures available from the Texas Transportation Institute, which tracks commute times nationally. The Automobile Club of Southern California places the average even higher in Los Angeles 136 hours annually per traveler and estimates that the delays waste 1.2 billion gallons of fuel a year. Growth in volume Throughout California, the population is growing faster than the roads can keep up. According to the Auto Club, road capacity throughout the state increased 29 percent between 1967 and 1997. But in that same time, the population increased by 70 percent, the number of licensed drivers rose by 91 percent and the number of registered vehicles spiked by 130 percent. Business owners say that while efforts to add diamond lanes and other freeway improvements have relieved congestion in some areas, it seems that no sooner is one fix made then another problem erupts. “There have been remedies, but we’re multiplying faster than we can deal with it,” Gump said. Gump has put his service workers on a four-day-a-week/10 hours-a-day schedule. “It’s one less day they have to fight the traffic,” he said. OnTime Painting Inc., a Calabasas-based company with seven trucks, has stopped taking jobs in some areas entirely because of travel times. “My guys have to leave at 4:30 or 5 in the morning to get to where they are going,” said Shirley Lee, president of the company. “And we stopped taking work in certain parts of town because it would take our guys three hours to get back.” Many company owners said they schedule their trucks to leave for the day at 6 a.m. or earlier, but they don’t always have that flexibility. Drivers for Allen Lund Co., which ships to and from the port, produce markets and other commercial centers, has to depend on when shipments can be loaded and unloaded. “We don’t control the demand,” said Allen Lund, president of the La Canada Flintridge-based company. “If we could, we’d do everything at night, but that isn’t what our customers want. If your receiver doesn’t unload your truck until eight in the morning, you’re going to be right in the thick of it.” Tracking systems have become standard operating equipment at most of these companies. Dispatchers use them while continually monitoring traffic reports and try to divert drivers when a major tie-up occurs. Business owners say they often have to decide between having workers sit in traffic or having them sit outside their destination. Inefficiencies All Valley Washer Service, which leases its washers and dryers to apartment buildings, and has to run repair workers to the buildings when the machines break down, is dependent upon the times workers can gain access to the locations. “When we get to a location and we have an appointment at eight o’clock, the truck might leave here at 6:30 and it gets there at 7:00, but it’s sitting there because the customer has said don’t come before 8,” said Feinstein. “So do we send the truck at 7 o’clock and maybe they end up getting there late, or do we send them at 6:30 and they sit in the parking lot?” All Valley has opened a number of storage facilities and moved workers along its business territory, which stretches down to the Mexican border, to shorten travel times. Feinstein even bought a condominium in Oxnard for one of his technicians to service Ventura County. “A typical service technician could do anywhere from 10 to 14 calls a day, and now we’re looking at six to eight calls,” Feinstein said. “So we’ve added more people and three more trucks. And you know what the scary part is? We picked up more locations closer (to the office) so they should be able to do more calls, and we still can’t do as many calls as we did two years ago.”
