August Truck Tonnage Rises 5.2%
Truck tonnage rose 5.2% in August from a year ago, the 21st straight month of year-over-year improvement, American Trucking Associations said Tuesday.
The increase follows a revised 4.5% year-to-year gain in July that was bigger than the 3.9% originally reported.
Month-to-month, the August index slipped 0.2% from July, ATA said in its monthly seasonally adjusted for-hire truck tonnage report.
That followed a revised 0.8% month-to-month decline in July that was originally reported as a 1.3% downturn.
The seasonally adjusted index for August was at 114.4, down from 114.6 in July. The not seasonally adjusted index, which measures actual tonnage, rose to a reading of 123.8 in August.
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said that while carriers handling as much freight as they can, “most carriers are finding it very difficult to hire new truck drivers, which mean they can’t add too many trucks.
“Freight has been going sideways for much of this year, but it isn’t falling significantly either, which suggests the U.S. economy just might skirt another recession,” he said in a statement.
“In part, this is due to less industry supply. The number of trucks operated by the truckload industry is still down about 12% from the height in late 2006, yet tonnage levels are about the same as in late 2006,” Costello said.
ATA calculates the tonnage each month based on reports by its member trucking companies.
