This week’s Freight Talk “Trend of the Week” focused on the fact that rates continued to decline seasonally in national markets throughout the US, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, and Philadelphia.  Throughout the month of January Open Mile has noticed extremely soft market conditions throughout the US, but especially in areas you may not expect like Chicago, Columbus, Memphis, and Saint Louis all demonstrating “load to truck ratio’s” of less than 1.5 loads per truck.  While freight volumes typically drop in January and throughout the 1st Quarter, we have been surprised to see some of the major markets as affected as they have been.  For example, In Chicago carriers are really fighting over freight right now and we are seeing some of the lowest prices we’ve seen in the past 18 months.  Rates from Metro Chicago to the North East and New England regions dropped on average by 12% last week at Open Mile, while rates from the East Coast back to Chicago remained stable.  This is clearly a sign that volumes have dropped out of this major market and the carriers based there are simply trying to keep their trucks moving and drivers happy.

With all of that said, we are continuing to see market fluctuations throughout the country and on the “drop of a dime” conditions could flip drastically.  I have already noticed this week Load to Truck ratio’s rising from Monday to Wednesday in Major Markets such as Memphis and Cincinnati which potentially is a sign that things are starting to heat up.  Additionally, bad weather or the lack of it, has allowed capacity to remain somewhat stable without any “acts of God” taking place temporarily displacing it, resulting in rate increases.  We’ll continue to report on capacity trends throughout the US over the next few months, to determine what if any capacity/price shifts will happen in 2012.

This past week’s Freight Talk “Rate Trend of the Week” focused on the fact that Van Rates continue to dip as we enter the 3rd week of 2012, with “Memphis recording the only major market increase”.  While Trans-core did mention some high paying lanes out of Memphis, most major lane combo’s declined significantly, with Northern California seeing rates drop over 7%.  At Open Mile we are continuing to see rates decline as we called out in last week’s blog, which really is not that big of a surprise this time of year.  While we do not operate throughout all regions of the country, we can certainly confirm a decrease in demand with rates dropping throughout much of the country.

At Open Mile, we saw the largest decrease in rates this past week out of the Columbus and Cincinnati Markets, with rates to the east coast decreasing close to 5% and shipments to the West Coast decreasing just over 3%.  This drop in price was surprising to see, because rates off of the East and West Coasts this past week experienced some of the largest drops in prices.  We also reached out to a few carriers to confirm market conditions, with one mid-size carrier out of Chicago telling us that they are basically just trying to “keep their trucks moving”, because conditions are about as slow as he’s ever seen.

While things are certainly stable right now a sudden ice storm on the East Coast or Midwest could certainly flip capacity very quickly.  We’ll continue to report on capacity trends throughout the US over the next few months, to determine what if any capacity/price shifts will happen in 2012.

Hello and welcome to 2012.  This past week The Transcore Freight Talk Blog focused on the trends throughout the US now that the Holiday Season has wrapped up.  With truckload prices around the holiday season being a little bit lower than most analysts expected, our expectation is that there would not be any immediate spike in truckload prices as we enter the 1st half of January.  This is typically a time of year when we see consumers spending more and manufacturers producing less, typically resulting in rate decreases this time of year.

In their entry, Freight Talk called out that in the 1st week of the month that Van rates remained stable, “while both flatbed and reefer rates rose 1.9%” in the 1st 7 days of the new year.  At Open Mile with a majority of our freight being moved on Dry Vans, we certainly noticed a ton of available capacity, with carrier rates actually dropping as opposed to remaining flat. Overall we saw rates drop about 2% on back-haul shipments from the East Coast to the Midwest and saw rates lower 4% to Northern California, which may be a result of “The Stockton market gaining some speed with a 4.6% uptick in rates.  Additionally, we have noticed uncharacteristically low Load to Truck Ratio’s on Transcore’s Hot State Index in the Midwest with less than 1 load available for every truck.  This is a market that has boasted ratio’s of 5+ loads per truck throughout much of the year, so it is very surprising to see capacity remain so readily available even in the 1st Quarter.  Additionally, we have noticed trends of only 1.5 load per truck in Memphis which also seems uncharacteristically low even for this time of year.

At Open Mile we still feel that it is a little to early in the year to predict where rates are going to go, but right now it appears that capacity is readily available.  There will most likely be some outside factors (HOS, Driver Regulation, CSA) that make capacity flip, but from everything we can see day to day on the floor along with the data we have gathered from Transcore, it seems pretty quiet out there right now.  We will continue to keep an eye on capacity trends throughout the US over the next few months, to determine what if any capacity/price shifts will happen in 2012.