"I think the bigger thing in our data is really been the weather patterns affecting those sharpest drops," Mark Montague, the senior industry pricing analyst at DAT Solutions, told Business Insider.
According to a survey administered by the freight marketplace DAT Solutions that polled drivers from 257 trucking companies, only 3% of truckers said they receive detention pay for at least 90% of their claims to the shippers.
Jubitz founded load board service DAT Solutions as a separate unit in 1978. Then it was known as Dial-a-Truck. It grew out of drivers at the truck stop looking for loads.
A healthy economy and the growth of e-commerce helped fuel last year's freight boom, says market analyst Peggy Dorf at DAT Solutions, an online freight marketplace.
There is a noticeable positive amid the negative data points: The number of shipments posted on DAT’s load board is up nearly 4 percent between January and May compared with a year ago; it’s simply that there are more trucks available.
Prices on the spot trucking market, where businesses book last-minute transportation, were down 16% in April compared with the prior year, according to online freight marketplace DAT Solutions LLC.
The plunge in truckload spot rates — DAT Solutions' dry-van average spot rate was down 19 percent year over year in April at $1.80 per gallon, and $1.49 per gallon before fuel surcharges — has led to pricing that Broughton called “unsustainable."
Brokers to see drop from historic business climate of 2018, but market strong enough to handle challenges in regulations, weather and politics, DAT says.
Spot freight rates began falling in late 2018 and continued to decline through the first quarter, according to DAT Solutions, which tracks load prices.
Average national trucking costs hit a record $2.32 per mile in June 2018, up 29% from a year earlier, according to DAT. Since then the market has cooled, with costs averaging $1.87 per mile so far this month.