Written by Steven Hansen
Headline data for the American Trucking Association (ATA) and the CASS Freight Index show that truck volumes show significant growth month-over-month.
Analyst Opinion of Truck Transport
Both indices are in contraction year-over-year.
The CASS index is inclusive of rail, truck, and air shipments. The ATA truck index is inclusive of only trucking industry member movements (ATA’s tonnage data is dominated by contract freight).
I put a heavier weight on the CASS index year-over-year which is consistent with rail and ocean freight.
Econintersect tries to validate truck data across data sources. It appears this month that the truck employment rate of growth continues to slow. Please note using BLS employment data in real-time is risky, as their data is normally backward adjusted (sometimes significantly). Additionally, Econintersect believes that the BLS is not capturing all truck employment.
ATA Trucking
American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 6.7% in September after declining 5.3% in August. In September, the index equaled 115.1 (2015=100) compared with 107.9 in August.
Said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello:
September had a nice recovery after a significant decline in August. The truck freight market continues to be bifurcated, with strength in retail and home construction, but some continued weakness in industrial freight. During the third quarter, truck tonnage increased 2.4% over the second quarter, but fell 5.3% from a year earlier.
ATA Truck tonnage this month
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source: ATA
CASS FREIGHT INDEX REPORT
The following was reported by CASS:
Further recovery in the freight economy was shown by the Cass Freight Index in August. This supports what we have heard from public carriers across all modes, and we believe the trend of “better” has continued here in September. Expect the Cass Index to move back closer to year-ago levels in the coming months, although we think it will stay in negative territory until 2021. Rail traffic has been growing faster than the Cass Freight Index, but rail is only a small part of this index and a small part of overall freight spend in the U.S. Still, all signs point to an improving economy, and goods movement is getting better every month.
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Source: https://www.cassinfo.com/freight-audit-payment/cass-transportation-indexes/september-2020
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