Dan Goodwill has a great article (again) -

Coming Soon – A Truck Capacity Shortage and Higher Freight Rates

Those carriers that are still in business are trimming their truck fleets. Truckload carriers are cutting capacity at the highest rate in a decade to create a better balance between supply and demand. Bob Costello, chief economist of the American Trucking Association has supplied data that showed a 3.6% drop in capacity in January and February, “the largest since we began collecting the data”.

It’s what we’ve been talking about for months, except Dan has all the numbers. Manufacturers are also cutting back on production and even the used truck market is going to be tight because of all the foreign truck buyers.

The good news -

As demand increases, there will be a lot less truck supply than at the start of this freight recession. While some parked trucks will be put back into service, it will take time to ramp up truck production, hire and train drivers and replace the trucking companies that have gone to “trucking company heaven”.

Personally, I think the rise in rates will be more than 10% as the rest of the article states. This last month I’ve actually worked more than usual. I’ve even heard the cries of a shipper being desperate. Reality was they weren’t that desperate, but it’s a start.

It’s a good article and the point is that we may be at the bottom or at least close to the bottom of the slowdown and it may be picking up soon and the trucks / owners that have survived will be able to call the shots. I don’t think it will get much better till after the election. Shippers and manufactures are unclear about what the next President is going to do. Even though they’re all the same and have the same plan to destroy the economy, but that’s a different post.

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