Innovating through a persistent downturn: observations from the 2025 Best Fleets to Drive For

Published on February 19, 2025

The interviews are finished, the surveys collected, and the results from the 17th edition of Best Fleets to Drive For^® have been compiled. Once again, the industry is full of surprises, with several notable developments this year. While fleets continue to explore innovative ideas, drivers are definitely feeling the lingering effects of the downturn.

For this year’s edition of the program, 118 fleets were nominated by their drivers. That’s down from the COVID-fuelled spikes a few years ago, but in line with pre-COVID numbers and last year’s 117 nominations. From those 118 fleets, 62 made it into the final scoring round, also in line with last year’s numbers. Driver surveys were up about 10% this year, with a total of 5,365 collected by the New Year’s Eve deadline.

With all those driver surveys, and more than 3,000 distinct responses reviewed and scored, there were some definite trends presenting themselves. We’ll review those in detail over the coming months, but here are some of this year’s high-level observations.

Some things change, some things don’t

If the theme of last year’s edition was “how quickly things change”, this year it’s “why are we still here?” The now two-year-old freight recession continued to pummel the industry from all sides, and Best Fleets participants were certainly not immune. Investment appetite remained constrained across the board, but that didn’t stop fleets from finding ways to improve the experience for their drivers. Those efforts focused on expanding activities started in previous years, and refining and optimizing existing programs across a range of areas.

Looking across the 50+ questions that were scored this year, nearly two thirds of them needed their evaluation criteria updated, if not completely redefined. That suggests not just efforts to improve things, but efforts across the full spectrum of workplace experience for drivers.

In several cases, things that have been growing in popularity for the past several years have now become the status quo. Driver committees, dashcams, online training, and regular driver surveys are now standard operating procedure in fleets, with more than 90% of this year’s finalists relying on all four as foundations for other programs.

Fleets have also made significant progress removing operational headaches for drivers in various areas. Regular maintenance is scheduled so it doesn’t get in the way of driving time, and reimbursements for parking costs (or equivalent accommodations) are the rule rather than the exception. Lost time waiting at shippers has also been reduced through the use of trailer pools and proactive planning. As well, customer scorecards are becoming more common, providing real data to quantify and compare experiences at different pickup and delivery points.

One of the most striking observations from this year’s cohort is the effort owner-operator fleets are putting into improving the contractor experience. While their legal constraints haven’t changed, these fleets are finding creative ways to solve problems for their contractors and assist in the business building process. This was most notable in the area more broadly described as “benefits”. While these fleets can’t directly provide health insurance or retirement plans for their contractors, they can arrange for the availability of those programs and negotiate discounted premiums. They can also assist with counselling and education, helping contractors to understand the ins and outs of different options and make better choices when purchasing.

That’s just one area, but there were many others. In nearly every category, owner-operator fleets were doing their own thing, but still managing solve the underlying issues that face their contractors.

Drivers are feeling the pinch

Looking to the driver survey, we saw a new consensus around the issue of equipment: the current trucks are getting old and starting to have problems. This isn’t particularly suprising, since fleets started extending their trade-in cycles when supplies were constrained, then kept those longer cycles as the economy softened. However, for drivers operating those trucks months or years longer than normal, the effects are being felt. While drivers may understand the reasons behind the decisions, and the importance of restraint in replacement planning, they are definitely eager to start seeing some new equipment.

That hints at a larger industry-wide issue that’s emerging: driver satisfaction is dropping considerably. While the Best Fleets still boast strong satisfaction compared to their peers, the overall satisfaction rate across all fleets has declined appreciably in the past year.

In addition to the equipment concerns noted above, the dissatisfaction showed up in questions about communication, community and collaboration in the fleet, routing, and a number of areas directly affecting daily operations. It’s the most significant change in satisfaction we’ve seen in such a short time, and a worrying trend, to be sure.

We’ll be exploring these issues in more detail over the next few months, through this blog and the new seasons of podcasts. We’ll also be digging into it at the Best Fleets Education & Awards Conference, happening March 3-4.