CVSA International Roadcheck Hits Tuesday-Thursday

(Photo - Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) is holding its annual International Roadcheck next Tuesday through Thursday, with a focus on tractor protection systems and alcohol and controlled substance possession. This high-volume, 72-hour enforcement blitz will see some smaller fleets and owner-operators take time off to avoid potential violations and possibly being put out of service. The yearly event causes localized capacity disruptions in freight markets as fewer drivers are willing to haul freight.

The CVSA notes in a news release, "Controlled substance and alcohol possession/use remains a significant concern for motor carriers, drivers and the general public. The number of prohibited drivers listed in the U.S. Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse (DACH) has been increasing." Mark Barlar, director of DOT regulatory compliance at Reliance Partners, said in an interview with FreightWaves, "Don't have anything in your truck that isn't supposed to be there. What they're looking for is that drivers are OK to drive, they're not transporting anything, they don't have any personal use stuff, and they don't have any alcohol in the vehicle."
For tractor protection systems, the CVSA highlights specifically the tractor protection valve, trailer supply valve and anti-bleedback valve, which can be overlooked during driver pretrip and post-trip inspections. The CVSA added a handy inspection bulletin to help drivers and fleets determine how the testing will work. It's also available in French and Spanish.

FTR State of Freight: Freight market searching for growth

FTR

The CCJ reports a recent State of Freight webinar hosted by FTR Transportation Intelligence outlined a freight market that appears mostly flat but in search of growth. "This year is going to be pretty close to flat as well, but we are going to start seeing later this year a little bit of improvement, and start to see year-over-year growth, starting in Q3" said Avery Vise, vice president of trucking at FTR. Vise believes that specialized segments like flatbed and bulk appear to be declining, but he sees growth opportunities in dry van and refrigerated tank segments.

While things aren't great, they aren't bad either. Vise adds, "We do see a stronger market this year. The key takeaway really in all of this, though, is that while we're not seeing growth, we also have not seen a big falloff." Weak freight pricing conditions continue to see carrier exits but also an uptick in new entrants. Vise notes, "We've had some volatility in this trend, especially recently, but, in general, more carriers are failing than are entering the market."

For spot market rates, FTR predicts a steady increase year over year by Q3, with total spot rates up by around 1%. There is a catch, Vise said: "Although rates do look to start improving in absolute terms by the end of the year, we are forecasting that for all of 2024, they will be down about 2%." One dynamic spot rate event to watch for is the annual CVSA International Roadcheck next Tuesday through Thursday, which always sees an increase in spot market rates.

Market update: LMI April data shows large transportation price swing

(Source: The Logistics Managers' Index)

On Tuesday, the Logistics Managers' Index released its April data, showing a decline of 5.4 points in the overall index from March's readling of 58.3 to 52.9 for April. This is the end of four consecutive months of increasing rates of expansion, and the slowest observed rate of growth for 2024. A highlight of the report was the drastic movement in transportation prices from late March into late April.

FreightWaves' Todd Maiden writes, "Notable weakness was experienced in early April, when there was a 40-point spread between the transportation capacity subindex and the pricing data set. However, by the last two weeks of the month, the two readings were less than 3 points apart as prices increased more than 27 points (into growth territory at 54.8) while capacity declined 10 points to 57.4."

Despite the whiplash in transportation prices, early signs of truckload supply-to-demand balance appear to be forming. The report adds, "There had been signs that the transportation market was moving back towards equilibrium. However, with the movements in our transportation metrics, Transportation Capacity is now 17.3-points higher than Transportation Prices (61.4 to 44.1) indicating that we are still firmly in a state of freight recession."

FreightWaves SONAR spotlight: Spot market rates weighed down by low outbound tender rejections

(Source: FreightWaves SONAR)

Summary: Softness in spot market dry van linehaul rates has persisted as May enters its second week. The FreightWaves National Truckload Index (Linehaul Only) or NTIL rose 1 cent per mile in the past week from $1.58 on April 29 to $1.59. The lack of meaningful movement extends to the past month, with linehaul spot rates down only 3 cents per mile from $1.62 on April 7 to $1.59. Despite the lack of movement, the NTIL daily registered a range of $1.53 to $1.71 per mile m/m. All-in dry van spot market rates saw a similar pattern with the NTI increasing 1 cent per mile w/w from $2.20 on April 29 to $2.21. Month-over-month all-in spot rates fell 4 cents per mile from $2.25 on April 7 to $2.21.

Looking at dry van contract pricing power, in the past week van carriers saw continued degradation, with dry van outbound tender rejection rates remaining relatively flat. They rose 5 basis points, from 2.96% on April 29 to 3.01%. This is the lowest level for VOTRI since the second week of November 2023. Persistent and sustained low outbound tender rejection rates suggest more carriers may be increasing spot market exposure to offset declines in tendered volumes. Paired with competitive RFPs which saw customers ask for concessions, there is a case to be made that the sluggish dry van spot market performance can be partially explained by added competition from larger, heavily contract-exposed carriers backfilling volumes.

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