Trucking news and briefs for Thursday, April 21, 2022:
ATA's For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.4% last month after a 0.7% increase in February.
“During the first quarter, the index rose 2.4% from the final quarter of 2021 and increased 2.6% from a year earlier,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “While there might be some recent softness in the spot market, for-hire contract freight tonnage remains sold and is only limited by lack of capacity, both drivers and equipment.”
Costello added that ATA’s for-hire tonnage data is dominated by contract freight with small amounts of spot market freight, noting that contract freight saw the largest sequential gain since May 2020 in March.
Compared with March 2021, the SA index increased 3.8%, which was the seventh straight year-over-year gain and the largest over that period. In February, the index was up 3.2% from a year earlier. In 2022, year-to-date and compared with same period in 2021, tonnage was up 2.6%.
The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 123.9 in March, 17.9% above the February level (105.1). In calculating the index, 100 represents 2015.
FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index (SCI) fell sharply again in February to -17.9 after dropping to -10.1 in January. The February reading narrowly beats March 2021 as the toughest month to date for shippers.
