The trucking sector continues to show signs of recovery from more than three years of a freight rate recession, as an index of industry conditions for April rose to its strongest reading since February of 2022, according to transportation industry analyst firm FTR.
FTR today said that its Trucking Conditions Index (TCI) jumped to 11.6 in April, which is the strongest reading for the index in more than four years. Fuel costs again were a negative for the TCI although a far smaller one than in March, which registered a TCI reading of -1.1.
All key market factors were more favorable for carriers in April than they were in March, as improved freight rates and capacity utilization were by far the largest contributors.
“While surging fuel costs in the past couple of months obviously created cash flow crunches for many operations, tight capacity and surging freight rates are more than offsetting that challenge, broadly speaking,” Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, said in a release
“For the overall market, the missing element needed to continue the acceleration in market conditions is freight volume, which is growing but not especially strongly. The demand picture varies quite substantially by sector, however. For example, flatbed operations are benefiting both from capacity constraints and strong freight volume, which appears to be tied to a combination of data center construction and a recent modest recovery in manufacturing activity.”
“We expect overall trucking conditions to peak this summer, but our TCI forecast remains solidly favorable for carriers over the two-year forecast horizon,” Vise said.
The TCI tracks the changes representing five major conditions in the U.S. truck market: freight volumes, freight rates, fleet capacity, fuel prices, and financing costs. Combined into a single index, the number indicates the industry’s overall health, according to whether it is positive or negative.
