ATA says forhire carriers hauled 13 more freight in January despite winter39s icy wrath Photo courtesy of VDOT

Operations

For-hire tonnage ticked up in January

Feb. 24, 2015

Freight volumes kept rising for motor carriers last month, according to the American Trucking Associations (ATA), as its for-hire truck tonnage index increased 1.2% in January – which follows a revised gain of 0.1% in December of last year

For all of 2014, ATA said for-hire tonnage increased up 3.7%, slightly better than the 3.4% the trade group originally reported last month.

That follows a 5.5% gain in ATA’s index for 2013, the association added; noting that trucking hauled 9.7 billion tons of freight in 2013, with motor carriers collecting $681.7 billion or 81.2% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.

“Last year was slightly better for truck tonnage than we originally thought and I am expecting that momentum to continue in 2015,” noted Bob Costello, ATA’s chief economist, in a statement.

He added that for-hire tonnage has actually soared 6.7% over the last 10 months after “bottoming out” in March 2014.