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The long-awaited recovery of the US trucking market is showing all the qualities of an elastic band.

Despite some signals of improvement, notably a rise in tender rejection rates, the past year ended with declines in volumes and freight spend, and no immediate recovery is in sight.

Still, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) predicts an upturn for the year, with rising momentum to carry revenues to $1.46 trillion in 2035, from $906bn last year.

Through the second half of last year, market watchers jumped on signs of abating decline, as harbingers of a recovery of the trucking sector’s fortunes, but the recovery remained elusive. December was no exception.

The CASS Freight Index, which is published by CASS Information Systems and widely seen as the most accurate barometer of the US freight market, shows sequential as well as annual declines, both in terms of shipment count and freight expenditure. It registered a 7.3% month-on-month decline in shipment count for December, which translates into a seasonally adjusted drop of 3.1%.

Compared with December 2024, the index was down 6.5%, the largest decline since January 2024. For the full year, the index sank 4.1%, following a 5.5% drop in 2023.

The freight expenditure component of the index also trended down in December, slipping 2.6% from the previous month and 3.4% from December 2023.

ATA’s Truck Tonnage Index for December also shows contraction, a drop of 1.1% in tonnage from November and a decline of 3.2% year on year, marking a dismal end to the past year. ATA chief economist Bob Costello noted that tonnage sank 1.8% in November. The cumulative decrease of 2.9% for the final two months of the year pushed tonnage to its lowest level since last January, he pointed out.

“Sluggishness in factory output continues to weigh on freight volumes, but another drag on the index has been fleet growth at private carriers, which is holding back how much freight is flowing to for-hire carriers,” he commented, echoing assessments from previous months.

On a brighter note, the decline on the truck linehaul component of the CASS Index narrowed to 0.4% in December, from 1.1% the previous month.

“This index is now on the verge of turning positive year over year for the first time in two years, possibly in January,” wrote Tim Denoyer, VP of trucking at ACT Research and author of the CASS report.

Another gauge of the industry, the TD Cowen/AFS Freight Index, shows higher tender rejection rates in the truckload segment, as well as some upward momentum in the spot market. However, this has not extended to contact rates, and the market remains affected by overcapacity, its authors noted. Based on current market conditions and seasonal factors, they predict that the truckload rate per mile index will stay flat in the first quarter.

“The current macroeconomic outlook has some positive signs for carriers, but in the near term the same forces that shaped freight markets in 2024 are primed to continue in the quarter ahead,” commented AFS CEO Andy Dyer. “There’s no demand-side spark that will shift the freight cycle from what we’ve had the past couple of years and despite a growing number of carriers exiting the market, the supply-side correction has not reached the magnitude required to offset sluggish demand “

Despite the slower than anticipated return to recovery, ATA is bullish on the outlook for the sector, predicting a volume rebound for this year, with revenues rising 1.6% from $906bn in 2024.

There has also been speculation that tariffs introduced by the new US government could prove a boon to trucking demand. On the other hand, there have been warnings that tariffs could spark inflation that would stifle demand for cargo.

Over the longer term, ATA anticipates trucking revenues to rise to $1.46 trillion by 2035, with nearly 14bn tons of freight moved. Mr Costello said that the trucking sector should retain its market share over the next decade, which stood at 72.7% and 76.9% respectively, in terms of tonnage and revenue last year.

The pattern over the past couple of years has been downward pressure on rates and yields in the truckload sector, while less-than-truckload carriers have maintained their yields through showing pricing discipline that would be impossible in the highly fragmented trucking market. The TD Cowen/AFS Index notes that LTL pricing has lately shown signs of softening. Still, a fairly small field of operators shielded by relatively high entry barriers augurs comparatively solid results in the near future, whereas the truckload sector is expected to see more casualties before the recovery picks up steam.

One industry analyst remarked that the truckload industry had failed to raise its value proposition to customers and that truck drivers still waited hours to load freight, without compensation for the wasted time. Truckload carriers have to create value for customers, which would enable them to change their pricing model, he said.

For now, the industry keeps waiting for an upturn in the market.

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