According to ACT Research’s recently released Transportation Digest, truckload contract rates turned negative in Q3/19, down 2% year-over-year, and loaded miles per tractor fell 5% in the same time period. In Q3/19, less-than-truckload revenue growth, net fuel, also turned negative, falling 1.6% year-over-year.

“In the truckload market, based on our publicly-traded carrier database, ACT is seeing some carriers move assets to more stable dedicated contracts, even as a weak freight environment has exposed carriers to a bit more spot freight,” said Kenny Vieth, ACT’s president and senior analyst. “While the loaded miles for these carriers are down, it is still a bit better than we saw in the previous quarter as the soft freight environment met near-record high US tractor capacity growth.”

Regarding the less-than-truckload segment, Vieth commented, “The carriers we track in our database represent about 70% of the LTL industry, and we saw revenue growth drop in 2019’s third quarter, as tonnage declines worsened, and yields softened modestly. Tonnage dropped for the fourth consecutive quarterly.”

The report, which combines ACT’s proprietary data analysis from a wide variety of industry sources, paints a comprehensive picture of trends impacting transportation and commercial vehicle markets. This monthly report is designed as a quick look into transportation insights for use by fleet and trucking executives, reviewing top-level considerations such as for-hire indices, freight, heavy and medium duty segments, the U.S. trailer market, used truck sales information, and an overview of the U.S. macro economy.