Officials at area truck lines are expressing guarded optimism about an American Trucking Association report that tonnage has risen for six of the last eight months.
Following tonnage increases of 0.4 percent in March and 0.9 percent in April, the American Trucking Associations reported a dip of 0.6 percent in May, the first month-to-month drop since February, according to an ATA news release.
The reduction put the seasonally adjusted index at 109.6.
The ATA index uses a baseline of the year 2000, during which the figure was 100, and is a relative measure of the monthly tonnage transported by the motor carrier industry, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration. There is a one-month lag from when the data is reported.
Considering that trucks historically haul two-thirds of all domestic freight tonnage, including manufactured and retail goods, trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy.
“If there is an increase in truck tonnage, it means consumers are coming back to stores with more confidence in their shopping habits and their shopping trends,” said Mike Walker, president of TCSI/Transland Inc. in Strafford. “We hope consumer confidence is increasing, because without consumer demand, the trucking industry does not do well.”
Walker said lower consumer demand has hurt the trucking industry more severely during the current recession than the 2001–02 economic strain.
The change in tonnage hauled by fleets before seasonal adjustment was 108.3 in May, down 2.8 percent from April.
Don Christenson, owner of Strafford-based Christenson Transportation Inc., said his company has had more loads offered in the last six months, but he’s had to reject some orders because of capacity issues.
“We were underutilized nine months ago. We’re definitely operating at 100 percent capacity,” Christenson said. “We are able to get some rate increases as the tonnage comes up and load tenderings increase.”
Walker wouldn’t quantify the uptick in terms of tonnage or loads for his company, which last year laid off 10 people – its first since 1982 – and pulled 15 tractors off the road. According to the March 2010 Springfield Business Journal Powersource, TCSI/Transland has 240 workers.
Walker also pointed to another indicator of an economic shift.
“One thing I am seeing, the driver shortage that we experienced in 2003, 2004 and 2005 … has come back into our industry,” he said. “We’re all struggling to find qualified drivers (for) our trucks. We don’t know if drivers are migrating to other industries because business is picking up, or just what, but there seems to be a shortage of qualified drivers, which could indicate that tonnage is picking up.”
Christenson doesn’t extract too much optimism from the run up in the ATA index.
“The trucking industry has lost a lot of trucks over the last two and half years due to bankruptcies, truck closures, just underperforming businesses, so any small increase in shipments allows the rates to start to climb,” said Christenson, whose firm has reduced its work force by 3 percent to 4 percent. It now employs 125 drivers and 30 office employees, he said.
Earlier this year, Overland Park, Kan.-based YRC Inc. (Nasdaq: YRCW) eliminated nearly 50 positions in Strafford when it closed its less-than-truckload distribution center and turned it into a significantly smaller, satellite terminal. The February move brought employment at YRC’s Strafford center to about 70, officials said at the time. Another 70 dock workers lost their jobs in stages during the prior year.
According to the ATA, trucks hauled 8.8 billion tons of freight in 2009 and collected $544.4 billion, or 82 percent, of total revenue earned by all transport modes.
Compared to May 2009, seasonally adjusted tonnage increased 7.2 percent in May, the sixth consecutive year-to-year gain. In April, the year-to-year increase was 9.5 percent. Through May, ATA said tonnage is up 6.2 percent compared to the same period in 2009.
ATA calculates the index based on member surveys.
“We’re moving forward in 2010 with guarded optimism,” Walker said. “I don’t think this economy is roaring by any stretch of the imagination. It’s puttering along, trying to improve ever so slowly.”[[In-content Ad]]
