ATA May Truck Tonnage Index increases by 2.7%
American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.7% in May 2016 following a revised 1.7% drop during April. In May, the index equaled 139 (2000=100), up from 135.3 in April. The all-time high was 144 in February.
Compared with May 2015, the SA index jumped 5.7%, which was up from April’s 2.4% year-over-year gain. Year-to-date, compared with the same period in 2015, tonnage was up 4%.
“Following two consecutive decreases totaling 6%, May was a nice increase in truck tonnage,” said Bob Costello, ATA chief economist. “Better consumer spending in April and May certainly helped, but economic growth remains mixed, and I’d expect the recent choppy pattern in tonnage to continue for the next quarter or two.
“We recently received good news on the inventory cycle, with the total business inventory-to-sales ratio declining for the first time in nearly a year. While one month doesn’t make a trend, this was good news for the trucking industry,” he said.
In contrast to this report, the Logistics Management website has an article by Jeff Berman, group news editor, that presents another view of the freight scenario:
An ongoing malaise within various freight transportation- and logistics-related subsectors shows no signs of changing, based on data in the May recent edition of the Cass Freight Index Report from Cass Information Systems.
May shipments were up 1.3 percent compared to April at 1.091, which topped a modest 0.6% gain from March to April and down 5.8% annually and 7.0% below May 2014, which is steeper than the 4.9% annual decline seen in April.
Despite May’s sequential gains, the report said that they remain well below shipment gains over the last several years. And even with depressed shipment levels May represents a year-to-date high.
Trucking serves as a barometer of the US economy, representing 68.8% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled just under 10 billion tons of freight in 2014. Motor carriers collected $700.4 billion, or 80.3% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.