Photo/Illutration Trucks parked in a row are seen at the Ebina Service Area on the Tomei Expressway late at night in May 2020. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

A cap on overtime hours for truck drivers went into effect on April 1, raising concerns of future disruptions to logistics and the possibility of eventually becoming impossible to transport some goods. 

Long-distance transportation, which tends to require long working hours, will be particularly affected.

“Since this is an annual cap, it will not suddenly make it impossible to transport goods," said a representative of the Japan Trucking Association. "However, if an increasing number of businesses reduce work or withdraw from long-distance routes, economic activities may be affected.”

Until now, the logistics industry has heavily relied on drivers working long hours. However, the Labor Standards Law was revised to limit overtime to 960 hours per year starting in April.

Penalties will be imposed for malicious violations. The maximum number of hours worked, including breaks, is now limited to 3,300 hours per year, which could lead to a shortage of drivers.

A freight company based in Kanagawa Prefecture that employs about 30 drivers to transport daily necessities and sundries over long distances stopped operating regular service to and from Osaka and Hyogo prefectures in February.

Drivers who traveled these routes on a set schedule worked approximately four hours of overtime per day, which exceeds the annual limit of 960 hours.

If drivers continued to work like near the limit of the regulations, they could exceed the overtime limit by getting stuck in traffic or hitting a roadblock.

Since the company cannot afford to hire new drivers to share the workload, it decided not to deliver along those routes.

A company executive lamented, “We have no choice but to select jobs that do not exceed the limit, such as switching to shorter distances.”

There is a movement to review delivery methods with the new regulations in mind, and the impact on daily life is beginning to emerge.

Japan Post has been delaying the arrival time of Yu-Pack parcels by about half a day in a wide range of regions.

In the future, more operators may withdraw from long-distance services--such as delivering from regions such as Kyushu, Shikoku and Tohoku to major consumption centers in the Kanto and Kansai regions.

Fresh agricultural and marine products may no longer be delivered to these major consumption centers, and costs may rise due to the need for more drivers.

The central government aims to promote alternatives, such as “relay transportation,” in which cargo is transferred at intermediate points along routes, and “modal shift,” in which the transportation method is switched from truck to rail or ship.

However, it is unclear how far these alternatives will spread.

According to a survey by the Japan Trucking Association, 38.6 percent of long-distance freight companies have drivers whose overtime exceeds the cap.

This is higher than the 29.1 percent for the industry as a whole.

This is because driving hours are long, and there is also waiting time between loading and unloading of cargo. Additionally, fixed arrival times make it difficult to shorten working hours.

According to a 2022 estimate by the NX Logistics Research Institute and Consulting Inc., a logistics think tank, if no measures are taken, there will be a 14.2 percent shortage of truck transportation capacity in 2024. This is equivalent to about 140,000 drivers.

(This article was written by Go Takahashi and Daisuke Hirabayashi.)

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