Growth in long haul freight will drive tighter trucking market in 2020

Feb 23, 2020 at 12:40 PM CST
It is still early in the year, and there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome for carriers, but a often overlooked pattern has changed since last summer that may help their bottom line — longhaul volumes (loads that move over 800 miles) have been averaging over 8% higher since September of last year. Through much of 2019 volumes were dramatically softer than the previous year before starting to recover later in the year. June volumes — normally one of the two annual peaks of activity — were almost 7% lower than previous year. With many carriers having expanded their fleets to accommodate the volumes of high-volume growth in 2018, many struggled to keep their drivers on the road in 2019.

Feb 23, 2020 at 12:40 PM CST

It is still early in the year, and there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome for carriers, but a often overlooked pattern has changed since last summer that may help their bottom line — longhaul volumes (loads that move over 800 miles) have been averaging over 8% higher since September of last year. Through much of 2019 volumes were dramatically softer than the previous year before starting to recover later in the year. June volumes — normally one of the two annual peaks of activity — were almost 7% lower than previous year. With many carriers having expanded their fleets to accommodate the volumes of high-volume growth in 2018, many struggled to keep their drivers on the road in 2019.