FTR Intel’s Trucking Conditions Index (TCI) rebounded in January to a +10.37 reading, almost two points higher than December 2020.

According to FTR, stronger freight rates and volume more than offset higher fuel costs in January. Rising fuel costs will have a more negative impact on the February TCI, but FTR anticipates the index will remain very strong because freight market dynamics are solidly in carriers’ favor.

“Market conditions are close to the best ever for trucking companies, and they should remain that way at least through this year,” Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, commented. “With stimulus from Washington, extraordinarily lean inventories, and a fading pandemic, solid freight demand is practically baked in.”

FTR’s latest forecast calls for stronger freight demand through 2021 with positive trucking conditions expected through 2021 even if the current tight driver market were to loosen somewhat as the pandemic fades.

“The bigger risk to good times is that driver capacity comes back too strongly as labor participation rebounds, but with the pipeline of new drivers constricted for the past year, that risk seems low,” Vise added. “Trucking’s weak payroll jobs numbers for January and February even as freight volume is strong suggests that the principal issue is the supply of drivers, not demand for them.”