OTTAWA -- Margins may have been slimmer than owners may have liked but Canada’s trucking community turned a profit during the fourth quarter of 2009.

According to Statistics Canada’s new Quarterly Trucking Survey, trucking companies earned operating revenue of $9.9 billion in last year’s final quarter.

During the same period, these businesses reported operating expenses of $8.9 billion and as a result, the operating ratio (operating expenses divided by operating revenue) was 0.898. A ratio greater than 1.000 represents an operating loss.

Among the specific expense categories obtained by the survey, salaries and wages accounted for 28 percent of total operating expenses, while fuel expenses represented 18 percent. All other operating expenses, such as payments to owner-operators, purchased transportation services, maintenance and depreciation, represented more than half (54 percent) of the total operating expenses incurred during the fourth quarter of 2009.

The Quarterly Trucking Survey replaces the Quarterly Motor Carriers of Freight Survey, which was discontinued following the release of data for the fourth quarter of 2008.

The data from the two surveys is not strictly comparable as a result of the expanded coverage of the Quarterly Trucking Survey, which covers all businesses with annual revenue from trucking establishments of $30,000 or more. The Quarterly Motor Carriers of Freight survey covered only for-hire carriers with annual revenue of $1 million or more.