What factors drive the trucking freight economy?

Freight forecasters need to understand what drives the freight economy in order to forecast volumes, capacity and rates.  Much like the general economy, the variables that drive the freight economy are too numerous to count. However, we can narrow down the principal factors to a select few that really move the needle. Many of these […]

Brokerage benchmarking: Your prescription for success

SONAR Broker Benchmarking

Let’s face it, starting a brokerage does not require significant upfront capital, relative to other businesses in other industries. In fact, many of the nation’s top logistics operations started with a telephone, a prospect list and the dream of an entrepreneur. Despite the ease of entry, growing a successful brokerage business with true staying power […]

Announcing SONAR Signals: An out of the box offering for third-party developers

SONAR Signals

This morning FreightWaves launched new features and products that make the SONAR data platform even easier to use and will help transportation companies make data-driven decisions at all levels in their organizations. Lane Signal gives shippers, carriers and brokers real-time trucking spot rates, pricing power information, and volume and capacity data on any origin-destination pair […]

FreightWaves launches Mission Control

FreightWaves now offers clients their own customizable TV network. “Mission Control can be customized to your audience, can feature your data, and promotes your brand to as many companies and people that you want,” explained Craig Fuller, CEO of FreightWaves.   Mission Control is powered by FreightWaves SONAR data and the award-winning FreightWavesTV video platform. Mission […]

FreightWaves SONAR adds Lane Signal app

Lane Signal

FreightWaves SONAR now provides analytics down to the lane level. SONAR subscribers can see and use data on a freight lane at the granular level. FreightWaves launched SONAR two years ago – the first platform to provide real-time market data based on tendered transactions. Tenders are electronically transmitted load requests from shippers to carriers. For […]

Why destination matters for freight rates

While origin matters for transportation rate forecasting, the destination is often times more important. The transportation rates for a backhaul destination are naturally higher than transportation rates for a headhaul market. This holds for all freight moved by truck, rail/intermodal, ocean or air.

How to develop freight forecasts using SONAR

Forecasting trucking rates is one of the most important roles for all freight forecasters. Load volumes and truck capacity for individual markets are the primary drivers in developing freight forecasts. Each individual freight market has its own unique load demand and truck capacity cycles. These cycles are most often linked to seasonal demand patterns and the ratio of outbound to inbound freight volumes in each market.


How is freight priced? A dive into freight rates by mode of transit

Barge around the Tennessee River Gorge

Understanding freight cost per unit across different transportation modes is a key to determining what mode is the most cost-effective and timely to ship goods from point A to point B. With this information, a freight forecaster can then develop competitive requests for quotes (RFQ) and requests for pricing (RFP).  Full-truckload is priced on a […]

How are spot rates calculated?

Image of a truck carrying a freight load on the highway

Transportation rate analysis is a core part of any seasoned freight forecaster’s role. While the trucking contract market represents 85% of the freight volume in the for-hire truckload industry and the trucking spot market represents just 15% of truckload demand, the most volatile rates in the truckload industry can be found in the spot market. […]

Good news: The freight market is about to turn up

Freight market forecasting is a tricky game these days. Historical freight market data models provide good reference points, but because of the unprecedented nature of COVID-19 (a classic example of a black swan event), we have to rely on current data to understand what is taking place in the freight market. The good news is […]

Why historical spot rates alone are not the best predictor of future spot rates

Truck with rainbow

History tends to repeat itself, or does it? A common thought in the trucking industry is that looking at historical spot rates are good indicators of what to expect each year. It is true to an extent that historical trends do well to predict certain aspects of future spot rates, such as seasonal movement, but […]

How to Calculate Gross Fuel Expense per Mile

Fuel represents the second largest expense for any trucking operation (behind driver compensation). In fact, fuel can eat up 25% or more of the revenue generated by a carrier, or over 43 cents per mile driven. Driver wages and benefits are market driven, and are heavily influenced by geography. Further, there is a strong correlation […]

Why Class 8 orders are a lagging indicator of freight demand

Class 8 truck orders

Class 8 trucks, otherwise known as heavy-duty trucks, are the trucks that can haul more than 33,000 pounds and include all trucks that have a tractor-trailer. Demand for Class 8 trucks, reflected in monthly orders, is a function of buyers’ (carriers or leasing companies) ability and willingness to purchase new equipment. Both the carriers’ ability […]

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