Keep in mind that tonnage increased by 2.3% in January after falling 1% in December. However, he added that there’s evidence that in 2019 the industry and economy will moderate somewhat. Truck tonnage closed out 2018 on a 20 year high with an annual increase of 6.6%. The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 6.6% last year - the largest annual gain since 1998 (10.1%) and significantly better than the 3.8% increase in 2017.īut that annual gain was realized despite a decrease of 4.3% last December as the economy pumped the breaks a bit.īob Costello, the chief economist for the ATA, called 2018 “a banner year for truck tonnage, marking the largest annual increase we’ve seen in two decades.” However, there’s growing evidence that this may be the last year of boom times for carriers. “I expect 2019 to be a good year with mid- to high-single-digit rate increases for both truckload and less-than-truckload,” he says. Satish Jindel, principal of SJ Consulting, is among those trucking analysts predicting that this year’s round of contractual rate negotiations will average between 4% and 8%. By all measures, the nation’s top truckload (TL) and less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers should be able to squeeze one more solid year out of the nation’s longest economic expansion - and shippers certainly will notice because they’re the ones paying for it.
0 kommentar(er)
