Regional commercial trucks saw the largest increase in trip volume and mileage across three quarters from Q4 2025 to Q2 2026, while long-haul saw slight growth. That’s according to Geotab’s inaugural Health of U.S. Supply Chain report that analyzed data from the activity of more than 6 million commercial vehicles across five vocations: long-haul, regional, hub-and-spoke, last-mile and drayage.
The report paints a picture of a stable supply chain, backed by video telematics and AI-powered insights from Geotab’s research and insights division Altitude.
Nate Veeh, assistant vice president of business development at Altitude, shared in the report that the platform was built to turn aggregate fleet insights into decisions, and this report applies that capability to the supply chain at scale. Geotab Vice President of data and analytics Mike Branch said during a call with media that Geotab aims to regularly roll out this report —and with greater detail in future editions — “because this environment is changing very quickly, and we think that these insights can certainly be helpful to the broader economy.”
Branch said the goal is to provide a view into the freight economy earlier than traditional financial data that can take multiple quarters and up to a year to turn around.
“We’re sitting on a lot of this data that can provide insights in a way that really nobody else can … It’s completely unbiased. We’re not issuing a survey asking people’s opinion on things. This is based purely on the physical movement of trucks across the globe,” Branch said. “They’re early signals of what’s happening on the ground based on these movement patterns. I think it starts sparking conversation earlier so people can take action on some of these insights.”
Behind the insights
Geotab analyzed commercial vehicle activity per quarter across core U.S. interstate corridors I-10, I-35, I-80/90 and I-95.
It includes more than 1.2 million long-haul journeys, approximately 1 million regional trips, about 230,000 hub-and-spoke trips, more than 50 million door-to-door delivery trips (across four cities: Los Angeles, Denver, New York and Atlanta), and approximately 254,000 port entries for the country’s two busiest ports: Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey.
“The interesting thing is it’s not just a fraction of vehicles,” Branch said. “What we’ve got here represents about 12% of all U.S. commercial traffic coming through the platform, which I think is a sizable number enough for us to start making some inferences and supplying some insight here.”
Median mileage for long-haul journeys held steady with slight growth from 456.6 miles in Q4 2025 to 462 in Q2 2026, according to the data. Utilization (measure of active workdays) remained almost unchanged at around 73% across those quarters as well. Branch said this speaks to the stability of the ecosystem.
For regional commercial vehicle activity, travel distances rose consistently over the three quarters, from 100.3 miles in Q4 2025 to 102 miles in Q2 2026. The number of trips also grew 3.8%, but utilization held steady around 74%.
Steady utilization rates alongside longer drive times and more trips indicates that existing trucks met increasing demand by extending routes and workdays, the report said.
Branch added that regional activity outpacing long-haul “signaled a shift of inventory very likely closer to those end markets, so closer to warehousers, closer to retailers, closer to consumers to meet demand and faster delivery.”
Utilization rates for hub-and-spoke jumped from 80.3% in Q4 2025 to 84.3% in Q2 2026, while median mileage per journey decreased ever so slightly across the three quarters trip volume fluctuated. The report said that this suggests these trucks operated more efficiently each quarter and extracted more from existing assets by extending trip volume, vehicle miles traveled and utilization rates. Further demand would likely require added capacity, it added.
Geotab noted in the report that it is cautious about drawing overall conclusions when it comes to last-mile, door-to-door activity because each city is unique. However, one common theme among all four cities was a growth in trip volume, with all but New York in double digits, yet a decrease in miles per trip.
“It reads as a productivity story, especially one that matters right now with ongoing driver shortages. People are trying to increase the number of deliveries and the proportional cost there,” Branch said. “It seemed like, from a routing and optimization perspective, fleets are getting smarter about some of their strategy and how they’re optimizing the delivery within the cities.”
Branch said Geotab measured port volumes against port authority information and movement patterns of commercial vehicles. What he found interesting, he said, was a dip in trip volume on the West Coast despite the port reporting a 12% increase in June. He said what likely happened is rail absorbed that growth, meaning additional cargo did not produce an equivalent increase in truck movements.
“Redistribution is what drove stability while freight activity and capacity diverged at several points. Either capacity held flat or shrank while activity grew, or vehicle utilization rose while actual trip volume didn’t,” the report said. “These signals argue for a resilient supply chain responding to growing demand with smarter optimization instead of added capacity.”
