This edition of Freight Forecasting features Jason Roberts, President of Avenger Logistics. He and FreightWaves’ Freight Forecasting host Michael Vincent discuss how Avenger uses SONAR to keep its employees up-to-date … Read More
Trucking rates are partly driven by capacity, which is very sensitive to small changes in supply and demand. If you want to understand capacity, it makes sense to follow new … Read More
There are many different ways that full truckload rates are priced. Freight forecasters need to understand the similarities and differences for each to accurately predict transportation rates across dry van, … Read More
One of the most important tasks for freight forecasters is forecasting transportation rates, which are localized. That means that rates in Los Angeles are different from rates in Chicago or … Read More
If you are a long-term investor in or a trader of trucking company stocks, we believe it is imperative to follow the FreightWaves SONAR outbound tender volumes index (OTVI) and … Read More
When shippers are looking to move freight, they can pay one of two rates to do so: long-term contractual rates or short-term spot rates. Contract rates Contract rates make up … Read More
According to Goldman Sachs and SJ Consulting, the total North American trucking market generates $780 billion annually. Of this $780 billion, $360 billion is derived from for-hire full truckload, with … Read More
Freight volumes SONAR’s outbound tender volume index (OTVI) measures electronically tendered truckload volumes across the U.S. Overall OTVI is indexed to 10,000 (March 1, 2018) and is the aggregated volume … Read More
Tender rejections occur when a contracted carrier rejects an electronic load request from a shipper customer. FreightWaves SONAR measures the former via the outbound tender reject index (OTRI). Carriers really … Read More
Like all business owners, truckers need to sell their services and find customers. Unlike other businesses though, truckers need customers with freight in the right place, at the right time. … Read More
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 … Read More
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 … Read More
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 … Read More
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 … Read More
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 … Read More
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.
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.
Freight volumes are slowly come back to trucking market, but it will take a while before volumes in the contract freight market are significant enough to drive higher spot rates. There is a potential capacity shortage by the end of the year, caused by unseated trucks and trucking bankruptcies.
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 … Read More
The DOE National Average is the weekly average cost of retail diesel, assessed by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). For many carriers, the price they actually pay for fuel is different than the the DOE National Average. Why is this?