Midyear Trucking Market Report: Analyzing the Second-Half Outlook

An extraordinary reconfiguring of truckload capacity is upsetting what was once a “normal” cyclical cycle in trucking, pushing rates higher despite only moderate, at best, improvement in demand. Shippers are looking at structural changes that will lead to higher trucking costs in the second half and beyond, and they’ll need to adjust strategies to contain costs, where they can. The truckload sector faces regulatory change it hasn’t seen before, with new state and federal laws and court decisions piling on federal rulemakings aimed at getting unsafe truck drivers off the road. Those enforcement efforts are winnowing truckload capacity, which stimulates spot and contract rates. Some freight is shifting to less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, as well as intermodal rail, as truckload capacity tightens. LTL carriers are positioning themselves to protect rate hikes and to open routes to new types of freight beyond the traditional domestic industrial LTL base. And third parties of various types are increasingly interested in LTL.

In this webcast, experts will discuss how these trends will impact shippers and how they can respond.