Spot market freight availability on TransCore load boards in December rose by 103 percent year over year, to twice the level achieved in the same month of 2008. Freight volume also exceeded November levels by 11 percent on the North American spot market (United States and Canada), according to the TransCore Freight Index, a measure of truckload freight volume found on load boards supported by the DAT Network, including 3sixty Freight Match, TruckersEdge.net and the company’s Canadian subsidiary service Link Logistics.
The positive year-over-year comparison results from an unusually strong month in spot market freight contrasted with the extreme weakness of December 2008, and marks 10 consecutive months of upward trends on TransCore load boards.
December’s ratio of 2.65 loads posted per available truck was 145 percent higher than the load-to-truck ratio for December 2008. This strong increase is largely due to the combination of improving load volumes and prior-year excess truck capacity that caused carriers to post available trucks more aggressively than seasonal norms.
Although December is typically one of the weaker months for spot freight, it emerged as the strongest month in 2009, surpassing even June and September.
TransCore says brokers, 3PLs, carriers and owner-operators in North America list more than 50 million loads and trucks per year across a variety of services feeding its DAT Network, and as a result of this high volume, the company’s Freight Index is representative of the ups and downs in U.S. spot market freight availability.
CHICAGO -
It is important to always evaluate both sides of the position, particularly when operating within the transportation industry.
Many manufacturing analysts had seen this spike in freight volume as a negative sign of bad things yet to come. It is hard to make the position an increase in freight volume is due to the beginning of a recovery. Unemployment rates have continued to rise, and new threats have emerged into an economic recovery.
This leaves only one option left for explanation of a freight spike: Depleted inventories. Distributors and Manufacturers have seen financing options dried up for carrying these inventories so have consequentially been forced to reduce inventories at a discount as a matter of eliminate the carrying costs, or whether they have actually lost the ability to carry and finance those inventories.
Brad Hollister
Director of Business Development
http://www.freightaccess.com
312-450-3020
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