In a recent webinar, Avery Vise, vice president of trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence, outlined the company's optimistic outlook for the trucking market in 2025. Vise emphasized that while contract rates have softened over the past quarter, expectations for 2025 remain positive.
Weiss noted that contract rates have "bottomed" and are expected to start rising in the coming months. FTR is expected to grow 5% year over year by the end of the year, implying total contract rates will increase by approximately 2%. This gradual improvement is a welcome development for operators, but Vise warns that it will not reflect the significant spikes observed in 2020 or 2021.
Spot rates are also expected to climb steadily, with increases expected to be between 5.5% and 6% in 2025 - "nothing to get overly excited about, but certainly welcome from a carrier perspective," Vise writes. Demonstrate that rates are balanced and sustainable for the environment.
While current workforce data shows a post-pandemic increase in driver numbers, key takeaways for trucking fleets include an expected tightening of capacity. "Based on the official data we have today, we clearly have more drivers than we did before the pandemic," Weiss explained.
These numbers may change when revisions are released in the coming months. Heavy Duty Trucking's Deborah Lockridge writes: "But wait, as Vise explained in an HDT column last month, current labor figures are based on monthly estimates. More Accurate The data comes from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which is compiled over a longer period of time, so capacity may be tighter than the figures indicate."
Additionally, Vise highlighted that active truck utilization has improved and is expected to continue rising, reaching around 94%-95% by the end of 2025. However, he pointed out that this level is still lower than the utilization rate in previous years, such as 2021 and 2021. 2018.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently announced that it has withdrawn its request for a federal exemption from implementing the state’s Advanced Clean Fleet rule. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency submitted the highly sought-after waiver in November 2023 that would allow CARB to require fleet operations in the state to achieve a 100% zero-emission fleet between 2035 and 2040, depending on fleet size, truck weight and other factors.
For carriers operating in the state, haulage fleets will face the tightest schedule if the rulemaking is implemented. John Kingston of FreightWaves writes: “ACF’s most pressing request is that starting on January 1, 2024, only zero-emission vehicles can be added to the state’s hauling registry. CARB said that in The fate of the ACF exemption has not yet been determined, but it reserves the right to retroactively enforce the exemption once it is granted. It is unclear what will happen to the requirement.”
Beginning with the Clean Air Act of 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted California exemptions for decades, allowing it to set stricter pollution limits than the federal government. An additional caveat is that once California enacts more stringent standards, federal law allows other states to adopt California standards as their own under certain standards. Recent news about Daimler halting and resuming Class 8 truck sales in Oregon has drawn attention to a process that hasn't always been smooth sailing.
In the case of California, two factors influenced its decision to withdraw its request. First, the incoming Trump administration is expected to revoke such exemptions. The second is that the country is running out of time.
This is not expected to affect existing EPA Phase 3 rulemaking, which requires stricter standards to reduce truck greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2027.
On Tuesday, freight audit and payments provider Cass Information Systems released its Cass Transportation Index for December, which showed freight volumes in leased space reached their lowest level in December since the early days of the pandemic. However, prices are rising. The Cass Inferred Rate Index, which measures domestic freight costs across all modes of transportation, has increased year-on-year for the first time in the past two years.
Shipments fell 7.3% month-on-month in December, with half of the decline attributed to seasonal factors. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the index fell 3.1% month-on-month, erasing November's 2.8% month-on-month gain. Shipments fell 6.5% in December compared with the same period last year, the largest decline since January 2024. Tim Denoyer, vice president and senior analyst at ACT Research, wrote in the report that "continued capacity additions have put continued pressure on the rental market" and normal seasonal patterns will see the index decline by about 6% year-over-year in January. "
Freight spending also fell. The index measuring total freight expenditures fell 2.6% month-on-month in December and 3.4% year-on-year. Denoyer added, "The decline was due to a 7.3% month-on-month decline in shipments, and we inferred that December prices rose 5.1% month-on-month, which was the fourth consecutive price increase."
The inferred interest rate component rose by 5.1% month-on-month in December, a seasonally adjusted increase of 3.7%, and a year-on-year increase of 3.3%. Denoyer continued, "Based on normal seasonal patterns, the index will remain positive year over year in January and continue to rise in 2025."
Looking ahead, the report noted that winter weather is driving significant spot activity in January. De Noyer concluded: "The supply response over the past few months has been interesting. While the reduction in Class 8 supply over the past few months supports a return to rate increases in 2025, future capacity additions will be considerable."
Summary: The dry van spot market and bid rejection rates resumed sustained gains after a brief pause in the new year. The dry truck outbound bid rejection rate increased 83 basis points week-on-week, from 6.53% on January 6 to 7.36%. Looking at seasonal changes, VOTRI is now closer to the rates in 2019 and 2020, when bid rejection rates were 8.08% and 7.21%, respectively. Compared to the past two years, VOTRI will rise from 3.98% in 2023 to 4.36% in 2024, which is a significant improvement.
Spot market freight rates also rose, with the SONAR National Truck Load Index seven-day average rising 4 cents per mile to $2.52 from $2.48 on January 6. On December 14, dry van spot rates were almost back to a month-on-month high of $2.53 per mile. One positive sign for dry van rates is the continued resilience of the NTI, which has fallen for five consecutive weeks in the first two weeks of January. for the past six years.
Whether these conditions hold true remains to be seen. The seasonal decline in spot and outbound bid rejection rates comes with the return of a semi-predictable seasonal pattern, as late January through February is the slow season for the dry van space. The potential impact of tariffs remains an unknown. The winner of the import glut is the battle between truckloads and intermodal, with intermodal increasing its share recently at the expense of trucking in long-distance corridors like Los Angeles outbound.
DOT allocates $320 million to repair damaged truck routes in Helene (FreightWaves)
Bay and Bay adds dedicated oversize and heavy-duty flatbed service (Commercial Carrier Magazine)
DOT nominee Duffy vows to prioritize rebuilding I-40 (FreightWaves)
The trucking industry is currently unaffected by restrictions on connected vehicle components (Trucking Dive)
New Entrants Are Not (Completely) Crazy (Fleet Owners)
A Different Job: Trucking Isn’t What It Used to Be (Business Transportation Magazine)
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