The for-hire trucking industry has been in a freight rate recession for three-and-a-half years, but there’s one trucking sector that’s thriving, according to the National Private Truck Council’s (NPTC) 2025 benchmark report.
“I think for a lot of private fleets, the word is ‘what freight recession?’” Tom Moore, executive vice president of NPTC, said Tuesday at McLeod Software UC2025, held this year in Aurora, Colorado. “We've been able to capture and improve our market share over the past few years, dating back to COVID.”
Moore said the reason for the freight rate recession in the for-hire segment goes back to COVID when capacity shrank and costs skyrocketed. It was either hard to find for-hire carriers to service outbound or inbound loads, or the cost was through the roof. Because of that, many private fleets expanded capacity to keep products on shelves while their for-hire counterparts waited for a full truckload to move.
“All I have to do is say, toilet paper, and everybody gets it,” he said. “We wanted to have that product on the shelf, and that meant sometimes we would run our equipment at less than capacity—maybe one-third or one-fourth of capacity—just to make sure that we were honoring that commitment to those customers and making those sales.”
Moore said private fleets realized there was a significant benefit from operating in that fashion, protecting that sector from market swings.
Behind the scenes of market competition
McLeod Software CEO Tom McLeod said Monday during his keynote speech that those private fleets’ capacity is what’s causing the ongoing freight rate recession.
McLeod cited a statistic from the NPTC benchmarking report: private fleets hauled 7% more of their own freight in 2024 than in the prior year. He said that 7% chunk out of the for-hire market is a big hit.
“To me, the freight rate recession is about one thing and one thing only, and that's too many trucks on the road. It's just too easy to find a truck,” he said. “There are two big pools of excess capacity that are out there that have been very persistent. One is that private fleets have expanded.”
The other, McLeod said, is the leased operator. Many bought used trucks in 2020 and 2021 when rates were so high to get their piece of the pie, he said. Now, they’re hanging onto those trucks, and “catching some freight” by using technology for greater visibility into capacity.
Technology, he said, is what’s helping trucking, not demand. He added that demand will not be what pulls the industry out of the freight rate recession. It’s going to take a correction in capacity, he said.
But Moore said private fleets did pause to catch their breath a bit in 2024 because of access to greater availability on the for-hire side. McLeod said shippers have been taking advantage of the lower rates, finding that it costs more to operate their own trucks in some cases, so there was a little giveback last year.
“We gave some back. We didn't give it all back,” Moore said. “We are still leveraging our private fleet, and we are actually at a level that is pre-COVID when it comes to that market share of the outbound transportation.”
Moore said that’s because private fleets are subtly shifting from a cost and customer service value proposition to controlling the supply chain, which may mean suboptimizing by not operating at full capacity.
“Customer service used to far outweigh other reasons for being in business. Now, it’s about controlling the cost of transportation. You're seeing a hedge against outside carrier capacity and/or cost (cited by three-fourths of NPTC in the benchmarking report) … and enhanced control over the supply chain (about 60%),” Moore said. “So what we're seeing is a really wide range of factors that govern why private fleets exist.”
Data-backed growth
One-fifth of NPTC’s members reported business was down in the 2025 benchmarking survey. But year-over-year, whether measured by shipments, value, or volume, private fleets have grown, Moore said.
“Even with that down business, you're seeing pretty significant growth this year again,” he said. “Getting back to a freight recession. I'm not buying it. We've got an awful lot of freight that we're hauling, and every year for the past 15 years, whatever the measurement is, we're up over the previous year.”
Private fleets hit 75% of outbound market share in calendar year 2023. Prior to COVID, Moore said the average was about 67%. Inbound market share is also growing, he said, reaching an all-time high in 2024 at 43%. Inbound market share has exceeded 40% for the last two out of four years.
“What we're seeing is we're applying some of the same technology, the same kind of tools, the same kind of resources that we're using so successfully on the outbound side to capture more on the inbound side,” Moore said.
According to the report, about 13% of private fleets said they're going to reduce their fleet size or handle less freight, while 11% see no change. The other 76% said they planned to grow the size of their fleet or handle more of their company freight moving forward.
Growth factors
Moore said the reason private fleets are growing is because of better customer service. That is enabled by several factors.
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One is that many private fleets are growing their locations. The average private fleet has about 49 locations, Moore said, and over one-third of NPTC members have increased their number of locations year-over-year to move closer to the customer.
Among other factors, the average annual miles reached the lowest in the history of NPTC’s benchmarking survey, which began in 2005, coming in at just over 80,000 miles.
“Average mileage continues to decline, and the private fleets are moving closer to the customer. Again, to me, this exercises control over the supply chain,” Moore said. “The private fleet does provide a hedge. It has captured capacity, protecting us a little bit from the for-hire volatility that exists, and I think we're seeing greater control over the supply chain.”
