Trucking Index for April Reflects Good Seasonal Environment for Carriers

Carriers can expect the favorable conditions to improve further into Q3 and stay elevated well into 2019. The tight labor market, including a shortage of drivers, is holding carriers back from taking full advantage of the higher rate environment even as it increases their labor costs.

Avery Vise, vice president of trucking research at FTR commented, “The latest jobs report suggests that carriers’ aggressive driver recruiting efforts are paying off but additional growth in freight volumes, continued impact from electronic logging device implementation, and extreme tightness in the overall labor market should keep conditions highly favorable for carriers. The TCI will remain at near record levels until at least the fourth quarter, when the market may begin to stabilize due to additional truck capacity.”

The Trucking Conditions Index tracks the changes representing five major conditions in the U.S. truck market.

These conditions are: freight volumes, freight rates, fleet capacity, fuel price, and financing. The individual metrics are combined into a single index that tracks the market conditions that influence fleet behavior. A positive score represents good, optimistic conditions. Conversely, a negative score represents bad, pessimistic conditions.

The index tells you the industry’s health at a glance. In life, running a fever is an indication of a health problem. It may not tell you exactly what’s wrong, but it alerts you to look deeper.

Similarly, a reading well below zero on the FTR Trucking Conditions Index warns you of a problem, while readings high above zero spell opportunity. Readings near zero are consistent with a neutral operating environment, and double-digit readings (both up or down) are warning signs for significant operating changes.