By Mark Montague
Each week I examine 48 major lanes, looking for price changes in each direction. Usually, several spot markets exhibit a fair amount of price movement. This week, the market leaders are Atlanta and Chicago which measure at 1.1% price increase from the last measurement on March 2nd. The market showing the most decrease continues to be Los Angeles which declined 2.0% in the last two weeks. These are consistent with results seen for the whole month period.
The top gaining lanes consisted of Atlanta to Los Angeles, up 12 cents per mile in the last two weeks, while rates to Philadelphia were up 8 cents. All other Atlanta outbound lanes showed mild declines. Chicago outbound lanes were led by linehaul increases to Philadelphia, up 15 cents, to Dallas up 7 cents, and Los Angeles, up 8 cents.
Orlando, FL (central Florida) to Atlanta showed a notable increase of 21 cents per mile in the last two weeks. This is a solid indicator that produce has started to move, more evidence can be found in the load-to-truck indicator in Hot Market Maps, a new feature in 3sixty Freight Match / Power.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Produce Lanes Show 5% Rate Decline
Produce lanes are a key segment for refrigerated freight. Using the lanes in the USDA Fruit & Vegetable Report, I examined 159 lanes in early January and again today, March 16th. While produce volumes are up in terms of load counts in TransCore’s database, overall the data suggests falling reefer rates. Two markets are up noticeably, running contrary to this trend. South central Florida has risen 4.8% since early January and south Texas has increased 4.3% in the same time frame. Rates from AZ, CA, GA, ID, ME, NC, OR and WA all show declines in linehaul rates in this same period starting in early January.
If you would like an excel copy of this Produce Report, you can email me at mark.montague@transcore.com
For detailed information on current spot market lane rates check out Truckload Rate Index. For weekly market trends, sign up for TransCore Trendlines.
