Freight Tonnage Stays Flat After Strong Start to 2026

“The index is back to levels last seen during the fall of 2022.” Costello said. (grandriver/Getty Images)

Freight tonnage was little changed in April after a positive start to the year lifted overall freight levels.

The ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index was unchanged from the prior month at 117.8. The index also was 3.5% above where it was during April 2025. During the first four months of the year, tonnage was up 2.6% compared with the same period in 2025.

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(American Trucking Associations)

“April’s unchanged tonnage level is more impressive when considering that the index increased a total of 4.7% since the end of 2025 and hasn’t decreased so far in 2026,” American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello said. “The index is back to levels last seen during the fall of 2022.”

The Cass Freight Index reported that shipments decreased 4.4% year over year to 1.011 from 1.058. But the index also showed a sequential increase of 0.4% from 1.007. Less-than-truckload tonnage trends are improving for some fleets, while tightness in the dry van truckload market is starting to spread to other modes.

The Logistics Managers’ Index rose 4.2 points from the previous month to 69.9 in April. The report noted that this was the fastest level of expansion since March 2022. The increase was driven by continued expansion in the freight market and transportation prices moving upward.

“This is the second-[fastest] rate of expansion for this, or any, metric that we have recorded,” the LMI report noted. “Mirroring this movement, the April 2026 reading also features the second-lowest reading ever for transportation capacity.”

The Federal Reserve reported that industrial production increased 0.7% sequentially in April. Manufacturing output rose 0.6%, mining ticked down 0.1% and utilities output moved up 1.9%. Total industrial production was 1.4% above a year earlier.

“In general, it appears that April would have been a positive increase in terms of tonnage,” said Jason Miller, professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University. “Unlikely to be as pronounced as, I would say, the headline industrial production data would indicate.”

Miller said the discrepancy reflects sector-level differences, with growth concentrated in flatbed-heavy freight rather than consumer- and housing-related goods. He noted that stronger sectors tend to be tied to the artificial intelligence ecosystem, including commercial construction, steel production and electrical systems such as transformers, large storage batteries and solar panels.

“A lot of this, of course, is very flatbed-centric freight, which of the three main spot market sectors, flatbed is certainly doing well,” Miller said. “But then when we step back and we start seeing really anything connected to discretionary consumer spending, that’s not doing very well.”

Miller noted that production tied to single-family housing is struggling. He cited production of major appliances, furniture and carpets, along with weak new housing starts. He also noted a bump in auto production during the month, which he plans to watch given weak sales.

“The other question is, how is the consumer doing, especially given where energy prices are,” Miller said. “The concern is, do we see some progress on that energy price front because, again, we’re a couple weeks away from a point where oil could get very scarily high.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that total household debt increased 0.1% to $18.8 trillion in the first quarter. Aggregate delinquency showed little change, with transitions into early delinquency holding steady for auto loans and ticking down for credit cards and mortgages. Transitions into serious delinquency were mostly unchanged for auto loans and credit cards but accelerated slightly for mortgages, at roughly 1.5%.

“It was a brutal report,” Miller said. “We’re still seeing flows into serious delinquency at basically flat levels that are elevated. Probably one of the more disturbing ones was the flow into seriously delinquent mortgages.”