Differentiating between Market Structures
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ECO 365
March 7, 2016
Differentiating between Market Structures
Swift Transportation Company
Introduction
The trucking industry in the US is an indispensable network service in the US as it is the most important carrier of freight. Nearly 70% of total freight movement in the US takes place through trucks (ATA, 2016). It consists of 3 million heavy duty trucks that carry around 9.2 billion tons of freight annually as per current statistics. A large number of big and small companies have their transport operating system in this industry. The market is segmented into two parts, the Truckload (TL) that carry full capacity load from one point to another and does not reload en route, and the Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) which consists of smaller carriers that carry less amount of load compared to TL and operates in the regional network (Parming, 2013). In this paper we are going to study the operations of the second biggest trucking company in the US, the Swift Transportation Company Inc., in terms of its market structure and related strategies. Brief Description of the Company
The transportation company was founded in 1966 by Carl Moyes and his sons Jerry and Ronald in Phoenix Arizona (Reference for Business, 2016). Presently it operates in the USA, Mexico and Canada. It covers whole of USA and is the second largest trucking company in the US. It operates both in the TL and LTL segment. The company has gained considerable market power in recent times through some strategic mergers and acquisitions. Its major competitors are Knight Transportation, U.S. Xpress Enterprises, Inc., Covenant Transport, Schneider National Inc. and J.B Hunt Transport Services (Reference for Business, 2016).
Market Structure
The Swift Transportation Co. operates in both TL and LTL segment of the market.
