Information, Decisions, and Productivity: On-Board Computers and Capacity Utilization in Trucking
研究信息技术如何影响卡车运输业的产能利用率，发现1997年采用先进车载计算机的卡车产能利用率提高13%，行业整体提高3%，带来数十亿美元的年收益。
Productivity reflects not only how efficiently inputs are transformed into outputs, but also how well information is applied to resource allocation decisions. This paper examines how information technology has affected capacity utilization in the trucking industry. Estimates for 1997 indicate that advanced on-board computers (OBCs) have increased capacity utilization among adopting trucks by 13 percent. These increases are higher than for 1992, suggesting lags in the returns to adoption, and are highly skewed across hauls. The 1997 estimates imply that OBCs have enabled 3-percent higher capacity utilization in the industry, which translates to billions of dollars of annual benefits.