Freight volumes are expected to grow significantly over the next 10 years, according to analysis by the American Trucking Associations (ATA), with the 15.18 billion tons of goods expected to be moved by all modes this year climbing 36.6% to 20.73 billion tons by 2028.
In the ATA’s Freight Transportation Forecast 2017, the trade group projects freight volumes to grow by 2.8% in 2017, rising to 3.4% annually through 2023, and then fall to 2.3% a year thereafter.
“Over the forecast period, capacity shortfalls will develop,” noted Bob Costello, ATA’s chief economist, in a statement. “We are starting to see some selected tightness in freight handling capacity, enough to suggest that capacity expansion will be required if the modes are going to be able to handle anticipated growth.”
“While overall truck volumes will continue to rise, and trucking will remain the dominant freight mode – its share of freight tonnage will dip to 67.2% by 2028, with pipelines picking up most of the additional market share, and, to a lesser extent, rail intermodal,” he added.
