Critical Site Selection Factor #2: Highway Accessibility

As a location factor, highway accessibly “can be critically important. Highway accessibility is kind of a must-have,” says Richard H. Thompson, international director, Supply Chain & Logistics Solutions for JLL. “It has always been important not to have to deadhead it too many miles off a major expressway.” 

It’s certainly not hard to understand why. Every extra mile off the highway that a truck must travel adds to the freight cost and the shipping time, and when you multiply that extra cost by the many trucks that may come and go from a facility every day, the added costs grow considerably. That said, the impact on the overall cost of a product depends on the relative level of freight costs, and those costs have been on a downward trend, or at least running fairly flat.

“Freight costs have been pretty stable and trucking capacity has been available over the last 24 months,” says Thompson — and that suggests that site planners and operators aren’t losing as much sleep over highway accessibility right now as they sometimes do.
 

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