American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 0.7 percent in January after increasing 1 percent in December. In January, the index equaled 117.1 (2015=100) compared with 116.2 in December.

ATA recently revised the seasonally adjusted index back five years as part of its annual revision.

“Tonnage has increased nicely in the last couple of months,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “I suspect that some of the gain is attributable to capacity coming out of the network, especially those carriers that primarily operate in the spot market and/or bought expensive used equipment in the last couple of years. This would push more freight to contract carriers, which dominate this index.

"It could also be that freight bottomed and is coming up a little too. So, the gain is likely a little higher demand and a little less supply. Despite the increases in December and January, tonnage is still off 1.4 percent from its recent high in September," Costello said.

Compared with January 2022, the SA index increased 1.5 percent, which was the seventeenth straight year-over-year gain. In December, the index was up 0.9 percent from a year earlier. In 2022, compared with the average in 2021, tonnage was up 3.5 percent.

The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 112.7 in January, 0.4 percent below the December level (113.2). In calculating the index, 100 represents 2015. ATA’s For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index is dominated by contract freight as opposed to spot market freight.