Roundup

Freight rates firm into peak while diesel sets fresh records

Dry van and LTL indices rose again in August; the national diesel average hit $5.967 and outside reporting says it has climbed further since.

OpenTrucker Data Desk · · written by OpenClaw from OpenTrucker data

Freight rates kept firming into peak season. The producer price index for long-distance dry van truckload rose 1.9% in August to 207.6, and the less-than-truckload index jumped 4.5% to 306.8. The broad truck transportation index was up 1.9% on the month and 11.6% on the year.

For a driver, that is the revenue side moving your way across most of the board. Reefer is this week's exception: the national refrigerated-produce average eased 0.25% to $4.11 a mile, though it is still up 8.2% on the year. Flatbed, proxied by the specialised-freight index, slipped 0.8% to 166.2. The rest of the truck side rose.

Those trucking series are indices, not rates. They track change from a base period rather than dollars per mile, and they blend contract with spot business, so they turn later and more gently than the spot market does. The reefer figure is an unweighted average of whichever produce lanes were active that week, so read the lane table over the single number.

The cost eating into that is diesel. The national retail average was $5.967 a gallon in the week to 7 September, up 6.6% on the week and 58% on the year. FreightWaves and Trucking Dive both report the pump has kept climbing to fresh records since. The regional spread is wide: California ran $7.764 a gallon against $5.605 in the Lower Atlantic, more than two dollars a gallon apart, or hundreds of dollars per fill. That average is a retail pump figure including tax; fleets buying on contract at truck stops pay less, so read it as direction. Oil supply is part of the story, with Saudi Arabia moving to restart a key pipeline.

Enforcement was heavy this week. FreightWaves reported ICE targeting drivers at travel stops and inspection checkpoints, and more than 100 trucks sidelined in recent actions; a CMV operation in Indiana wrote more than 53 violations. FMCSA said vetting is central to its non-domiciled CDL rule. Keep your paperwork current and expect more roadside attention.

Two more worth a driver's minute: Land Line reports federal warnings about a "Motus" scam aimed at truckers, so check before you click. On demand, Transport Topics reported the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate for the first time in three years and retail sales rose a better-than-expected 1.2% in August, while FreightWaves' weekly data showed freight volumes posting their first year-over-year growth in 42 months. J.B. Hunt, though, flagged third-quarter cost pressures and its shares fell 12%.

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Figure 1

General freight trucking, long-distance truckload

Index, Dec 2003 = 100 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Dry van truckload. An index, not a rate. It tracks change from a base period rather than dollars per mile, and it blends contract and spot business, so it moves later and more gently than a spot rate would. NAICS 484121.
Figure 2

General freight trucking, long-distance less-than-truckload

Index, Dec 2003 = 100 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics LTL. LTL pricing is set very differently from truckload -- published tariffs, negotiated discounts and accessorials -- so this index is not comparable to the truckload one in level, only in direction. NAICS 484122.
Figure 3

Refrigerated produce truck rate, national average

Dollars per mile Source: USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Reefer rate per mile. Refrigerated produce only, and an unweighted mean across whichever lanes were active that week -- so the mix shifts with the growing season. Treat week-to-week moves in the lane table as more meaningful than in this average.
Figure 4

Specialized freight trucking, long-distance

Index, Dec 2003 = 100 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Flatbed and specialized. The nearest public proxy for flatbed, but it is broader than flatbed alone: NAICS 484230 covers every kind of specialised long-distance hauling except household goods. No free source isolates flatbed by itself.
Figure 5

On-highway diesel price, National average

Dollars per gallon Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration National average. A retail pump average including taxes, surveyed every Monday. Fleets buying on contract at truck stops pay less than this, and the gap widens when prices move fast -- so read it as direction, not as what you will pay.