Harsh weather drives January spot freight volumes to a monthly record high, notes DAT Truckload Volume Index

The new edition of the DAT Truckload Volume Index (TVI), which was recently issued by DAT Freight & Analytics, noted that spot freight volumes rose to all-time highs, for the month of January, driven by what it described as a weather-related bump in demand for truckload capacity.

The DAT Truckload Volume Index reflects the change in the number of loads with a pickup date during that month, with the actual index number normalized each month to accommodate any new data sources without distortion, with a baseline of 100 equal to the number of loads moved in January 2015. It measures dry van, refrigerated (reefer), and flatbed trucks moved by truckload carriers.

DAT’s data highlighted the following takeaways for truckload volumes, load-to-truck ratios, and rates, for the month of January, including:

• -the van TVI, at 250, rose 11% compared to December and was up 6% annually;
• -the reefer TVI, at 206, was up 14% compared to December and was up 1% annually;
• -the flatbed TVI, at 232, increased 11% compared to December and was up 6% annually;
• -the national average van load-to-truck ratio, at 2.7, increased over December’s 1.9, the reefer ratio, at 4.1, topped December’s 2.6 reading, and the flatbed ratio, at 8.3, was up over December’s 5.1;
• -driven by demand for trucks on the spot market, the van broker-to-carrier rate, at $2.14 per mile, up $0.04 over December, the reefer rate, at $2.57, was up $0.10, and the flatbed rate, at $2.47 a mile, was up $0.06;
• -on an annual basis, average spot rates fell $0.24 for vans, $0.21 for reefers, and $0.29 for flatbeds;
• - spot linehaul rates, which DAT said subtract an amount equal to a fuel surcharge, saw gains for the third consecutive month in January after six months of declines, with the van line-haul rate up $0.06 from December, to $1.71 per mile, reefer up $0.12, to $2.10 per mile, and flatbed up $0.08, to $1.95 per mile (DAT observed that January’s rates were substantially higher than January 2020, prior to the pandemic-driven supply chain disruptions, when the benchmark van line-haul rate was $1.57 per mile, and the reefer and flatbed rates were at $1.91 and $1.81, respectively, with demand for spot reefer equipment increasing during cold snaps as shippers look for ways to protect van freight from freezing, DAT added);
• -the contract van and reefer rates were flat sequentially, at $2.49 and $2.57 per mile, respectively, with the flatbed rate down $0.04, to $3.10, dropping to its lowest level since May 2021; and
• -the gap between spot and contract rates narrowed compared to December, at $0.35 for van freight (a $0.04 decrease), at $0.31 for reefer loads (a $0.10 decrease), and $0.63 for flatbeds (a $0.10 decrease)

“Winter weather increased the need for trucks at a time when shippers were moving holiday returns and springtime retail goods through supply chains, and for-hire carriers were rejecting a higher percentage of contracted loads,” said Ken Adamo, DAT Chief of Analytics, in a statement. “This was not a case of freight volumes sustainably trending higher. Barring some other disruptive event, we expect demand for truckload capacity to meet seasonal expectations during the months ahead.”

In a recent interview with LM, Adamo took a look back at 2023 to get a clearer look at how market conditions looked heading into 2024.

Adamo explained that 2023 largely followed a pattern similar to 2019, a year in which things opened the year generally at the bottom and stayed there most of the year.

“That was what we saw across dry van and reefer, so it was depressed rates, and fuel had its ups and downs throughout most of the year,” he said. “It started high and then started dropping towards the tail half of the year. You saw decreased spot market activity, mainly due to routing guides on the contract market holding very strong. Flatbed had the worst year, in terms of rate movement in a year of pretty constant decline, and it was not a great year for spot freight in general across any of the three equipment types.”

As seasonally expected, Adamo said activity increased towards the end of the year, coupled with an added boost in January from the Polar Vortex that gripped much of the Northern and Central U.S., which kept prices a lot higher than they would have typically stayed seasonally.

“That is ebbing back now quite a bit [in February],” he said. “I think it gave some folks some false hope that things would recover before spring shipping season.”