This report concerns the North American market for rigid frame and articulated offhighway dump trucks and is the first report on this subject published in OffHighway Research’s North American Service.

Off-highway dump trucks are used in applications such as large construction project groundworks and mining and quarrying, while some smaller articulated machines can be used on highways if their weights and dimensions are within limits. This report does not cover on-off highway dump trucks that are derived from onhighway commercial vehicles. Site dumpers with a rear driving position and forward dump body are also regarded as a different type of equipment and therefore excluded from this report.

The findings presented in this report are based on an extensive interview program undertaken with all major manufacturers and importers in the United States and Canada in 2023 and incorporate information from Off-Highway Research’s North American Database Service.

Articulated and rigid dump trucks are typically classified by their rated payload capacity in US tons (short tons) and this measure is used by some manufacturers to form part of machines’ model numbers. This can be a source of both confusion and ambiguity because a US ton (2,000 lbs/907 kg) can easily be confused with a long ton (2,240 lbs./1,016 kg) or metric ton (2,204 lbs/1,000 kg). Throughout this report, payload capacities are given in US tons unless otherwise stated.