Trucking freight charges plunged to two-and-half-year lows in March, DAT says
Regardless of rising demand from swelling truck freight quantity, nationwide common spot van and refrigerated truck charges plunged to two-and-half-year lows in March, based on a report from DAT Freight & Analytics.
These low charges in March capped a difficult first quarter of 2023 for many truckload carriers and freight brokers, with the one exception of the flatbed freight sector, the place pricing and demand on the spot market have been regular because the begin of the 12 months, Beaverton, Oregon-based DAT stated.
“Whereas shippers are taking benefit of the present scenario to stabilize their provider base and produce their contract charges again in line, the unfold between spot and contract charges stays traditionally massive—59 cents a mile for van freight, 57 cents for reefers and 66 cents for flatbed freight,” Ken Adamo, DAT chief of analytics, stated in a launch. “We count on spot charges to stay at ‘touch-bottom’ ranges till retailers begin replenishing stock for the end-of-the-year holidays.”
Whereas it’s no shock that the trucking enterprise is within the backside trough of a cycle, the outcomes got here regardless of encouraging financial indicators: the DAT Truckload Quantity Index (TVI) elevated for all three gear varieties for the primary time since July 2022.
The TVI displays the change within the variety of masses with a pickup date throughout that month; the precise index quantity is normalized every month to accommodate any new knowledge sources with out distortion. A baseline of 100 equals the quantity of masses moved in January 2015.
