Truck Tonnage Rises 3.2% in August
Truck tonnage increased 3.2% in August from a year ago, American Trucking Associations said.
Tonnage slipped 0.9% in August from July, ATA said in its monthly seasonally adjusted for-hire truck tonnage report.
Tonnage rose 0.4% in July from June, after originally being reported as unchanged.
The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents tonnage actually hauled by fleets, came in at a reading of 126.8, up 5.7% from July. ATA uses the year 2000 as a 100-reading baseline.
“While there has been acceleration in housing during the last few months, truck tonnage is being weighed down by a flattening in manufacturing output and an unintentional increase in inventories throughout the supply chain,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said in a statement.
“While choppy, tonnage has essentially been flat this year, with August being the second-lowest month of the year,” he added, noting the August index was 0.3% below January’s.
Costello said he sees tough year-over-year comparisons through the rest of the year as tonnage grew more strongly at the end of 2011, but said tonnage would grow less than 3.5% compared with the same period last year.
ATA calculates the tonnage each month based on reports by its member trucking companies.
