American Trucking Associations‘ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 6.6% in all of 2018 – the largest annual gain since 1998 (10.1%) and significantly better than the 3.8% increase in 2017.
That annual gain was
“The good news is that 2018 was a banner year for truck tonnage, witnessing the largest annual increase we‘ve seen in two decades,” said ATA chief economist Bob Costello. “With that said, there is evidence that the industry and economy
Compared with December 2017, the SA index increased 1.4%, the smallest year-over-year increase in 2018. In November, the index was 5.8% above the same month in 2017.
The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment,
Trucking serves as a barometer of the US economy, representing 70.2% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled 10.77 billion tons of freight in 2017. Motor carriers collected $700.1 billion, or 79.3% of