Indicators: Still waiting on freight’s ‘second season,’ conditions for shippers deteriorates

CCJ Indicators rounds up the latest reports on trucking business indicators on rates, freight, equipment, the economy and more.


Freight’s “second season” late: The freight volume that typically comes before the holiday retail rush hasn’t quite materialized yet, says DAT Solutions, who call’s fall’s freight pickup the annual “second season” for freight.

Van rates, meanwhile, held steady in their most recent week, hanging at $1.72 a mile nationally. Here’s DAT’s map of where van load availability is outpacing available capacity. As you can see in the map below, demand in the northwest is outpacing the rest of the U.S., relative to the number of trucks available:

DAT-VanHotStatesMap-2015-Oct18-24
And here’s a look at rate trends in some of the larger metro areas in the U.S., per DAT:

DAT-VanRatesMap-2015-Oct18-24


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Shippers conditions continue decline: Conditions for shippers, as measured by FTR’s monthly Shippers Conditions Index, continue to deteriorate in August, in some ways mirroring FTR’s Trucking Conditions Index, which has been on the rise of late. The current reading of the SCI indicates a “less-than-ideal environment” for shippers, FTR says.

FTR says market conditions for shippers will continue to get worse in the coming year or two, due to regulatory impacts on carriers and a potential capacity crunch expected either next year or 2017.