The economy is like the weather: If you don’t like it, stick around – it will change. Here’s a roundup of several recent partly-cloudy reports covering carrier capacity plans and freight volume.
Carrier survey: The fourth-quarter Transport Capital Partners survey finds a large majority of carriers expecting to grow capacity, and many are moving to replace their aging vehicles.
New hours-of-service rules mean lower utilization of equipment. As a result, carriers are being pushed to increase capacity and raise driver pay. The number of carriers indicating they are not going to add capacity has been trending down, and is now at its lowest level yet for the survey, at 27 percent.
For the first time, 30 percent of carriers expect to grow capacity by 6 to10 percent. These results are “not surprising” given that 78 percent of the carriers this quarter indicated they had lost productivity due to HOS changes, according to the analysis.
Larger carriers expect to be more aggressive in adding equipment than smaller carriers. Thirty-nine percent of larger carriers expect to add 5 to 15 percent, compared with only 27 percent of smaller carriers.
Among those intending to add capacity, the percentage of carriers planning to add capacity through the use of independent contractors has jumped from 16 to 26 percent.
The most commonly reported method for adding capacity is through company equipment that is either financed or purchased on a TRAC Lease: 35 percent, up from 26 percent last quarter. Carriers adding capacity by purchasing other carriers has increased from 0 percent three quarters ago to 6 percent.
