DIGGING IN

Dispatches
StatPack
$200,000
FUNDING
U.S. FREIGHT VOLUMES FLAT,
SPOT LOADS
DOWN 12.3%
Fleet managers attending the American
Trucking Associations’ recent management
conference heard that the U.S. trucking industry
is approaching the end of an economic
downturn, but it’s clearly been a rough ride.
The U.S. fleets have recently seen a slowdown
in freight, following a blip earlier this
year that was likely linked to shifting inventory
levels. “Now we’re even negative on a yearover-year
basis,” said Bob Costello, the association’s
chief economist. Freight volumes are flat.
Bob Costello
Contracted freight is steady, but year-to-date
spot loads were down 12.3% as of October.
Dry van volumes, which represent the largest share of truck freight, were up 1.2%,
but most of that growth came earlier in the year. “This sector has really been hurt by that
glut in inventory,” Costello said. In contrast, they were up 2.5% in 2014 and flat in 2015.
Flatbed volumes depend on the sector a fleet serves. Those who haul steel are
struggling, while construction-related business is “not too bad”, he said. That led to a
6.6% bump in flatbed volumes, while they were down 2.6% in 2015 and 3.7% in 2014.
Economist Diane Swonk noted in the same presentation that the steel industry was
closely tied to the oil industry, and when combined with a strong US dollar the effect
was devastating.
Tank truck volumes were up just 0.3% for the year in October, after a 1.1% drop
last year and weak 1.9% growth in 2014. A drop in fracking activities in the oil and gas
sector are to blame for some of that.
Then there are the Less-than-Truckload volumes, which have been hurt by the
slowdown in manufacturing. The 6.3% surge in 2014 volumes dropped to 0.9% in
2015, and volumes dropped 0.5% for 2016 at the time of the presentation. Much of
the 2014 growth came as these fleets dealt with a lack of truckload capacity, Costello
said. But there is good news for Less-than-
Truckload operations. “This group, longer
term, is going to see some decent growth,”
he predicted.
Year to date, truckload revenue per mile
was down 3.35% in dry vans and 2.6% in
flatbeds. Reefer fleets saw revenue grow
2%, and tanker fleets were flat. But spot
rates have been hit hardest in this measure.
Dry vans were down 13.2%, flatbeds were
down 12.7%, and reefers were down 12%.
New Brunswick is giving up to $200,000 to
the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association
to fund an investigative committee tasked
with finding solutions to the trucking
industry’s labor shortage. The transportation
and warehousing sector accounted
for 4.8% of New Brunswick’s real Gross
Domestic Product in 2014, or nearly
$1.3 billion in economic activity. In
2015, about 5.5% of employed New
Brunswickers, or more than 19,000 people,
were employed in the sector.
FUEL ECONOMY
BOOST
Technology that allows two trucks to travel
in tight platoons promises to improve fuel
economy, a report by the North American
Council for Freight Efficiency and the
Carbon War Room concludes. The latest
Confidence Report – a research series that
explores the viability of fuel-saving devices
and practices – determined that setting a
following distance of 40 to 50 feet can lead
to average fuel savings of 4% when compared
to real-world operating conditions
after accounting for traffic, terrain and
time when the trucks operate on their own.
The gains are realized when the following
distances are close enough to improve
aerodynamics.
NOVEMBER 2016 27