By all measures, the nation’s top truckload (TL) and less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers should be able to squeeze one more solid year out of the nation’s longest economic expansion—and shippers certainly will notice because they’re the ones paying for it.
Satish Jindel, principal of SJ Consulting, is among those trucking analysts predicting that this year’s round of contractual rate negotiations will average between 4% and 8%. “I expect 2019 to be a good year with mid- to high-single digit rate increases for both truckload and less-than-truckload,” he says.
However, there’s growing evidence that this may be the last year of boom times for carriers. The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 6.6% last year—the largest annual gain since 1998 (10.1%) and significantly better than the 3.8% increase in 2017. But that annual gain was realized despite a decrease of 4.3% last December as the economy pumped the breaks a bit.
2019 Top 50 Trucking Companies: Working to Stay on Top
Satish Jindel, principal of SJ Consulting, is among those trucking analysts predicting that this year’s round of contractual rate negotiations will average between 4% and 8%. “I expect 2019 to be a good year with mid- to high-single digit rate increases for both truckload and less-than-truckload,” he says.
However, there’s growing evidence that this may be the last year of boom times for carriers. The American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 6.6% last year—the largest annual gain since 1998 (10.1%) and significantly better than the 3.8% increase in 2017. But that annual gain was realized despite a decrease of 4.3% last December as the economy pumped the breaks a bit.
2019 Top 50 Trucking Companies: Working to Stay on Top
