The 7-day average line-haul rate for dry vans was $2.27 a mile last week, 95 cents higher than the same period one year ago (line-haul rates exclude a fuel surcharge), according to DAT Freight & Analytics, which operates the industry’s largest load board network and the DAT iQ freight-data analytics service.
The seven-day average line-haul rate for dry vans was $2.27 a mile last week, 95 cents higher than the same period one year ago (line-haul rates exclude a fuel surcharge), according to DAT Freight & Analytics, which operates a load board network and a freight-data analytics service.
What it means there aren’t enough truck drivers to move this wood around. DAT, which is the largest truckload freight marketplace in North America, can speak to that. In the first four months of 2021, there were an average of 72 available jobs on the spot market for each truck driver who posted on the DAT flatbed boards. Compare that to 2019’s Jan. to April average of 21 job post per driver post and 2020’s average of 16 jobs.
Currently, trucking is undergoing a resurgence, something quite different from a year ago when spot TL rates hit painful lows. Spot rates have shot up since then, from $1.59 in May 2020 to $2.66 in March, according to data from DAT. It is a big rise over 10 months, given the economy was in recession, and the world grappled with the coronavirus.
"Flatbed carriers are capable of hauling a wide range of loads, from raw materials like steel, to manufactured goods like pipe and lumber, to heavy machinery and even produce," said Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT. "As the weather warms up, the number of flatbed loads naturally increases as construction, agriculture and other activities that use flatbed trailers pick up."
The total number of loads posted to the DAT marketplace jumped 4.7% during the week ending April 11 but the number of available trucks on the network was up 5.3%. Balanced growth in the number of loads and posted capacity kept spot truckload van and refrigerated truckload rates in check last week.
DAT Freight & Analytics recently introduced Multilane Rates for Ratecast, a feature that enables Ratecast subscribers to build price forecasts into their workflows, complete RFPs in less time and improve their chances of winning bids.
The ratio of available loads to trucks more than doubled in March from the previous year, according to online freight marketplace DAT Solutions LLC, while the average cost to hire a big rig rose by 41.9%, to $2.65 a mile.
“It’s one of those developing stories,” Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Solutions, told Transport Topics. “The metaphor of a rippling effect is very appropriate, because most of the experts think that there is a ripple effect that’s going to last well into the summer.”
Spot load posts on the DAT load board were up nearly 130% YoY in March, but capacity continues to be an issue with truck postings falling almost 7% YoY. Comparing levels to March 2020 is difficult given the freight environment in the early days of the pandemic, but spot posts were up even more (232%) compared to the same period in 2019.