Cheers! North American spot market freight is up
From TransCore 3sixty Carrier Blog

Freight availability tripled in the first quarter of 2010, compared to the same time period in 2009, on the North American spot market, according to the TransCore North American Freight Index. Spot market freight volume has been improving steadily since October, on a year-over-year basis, and load availability has been unseasonably high since December. In February and March, spot freight volume neared record levels for those months.

The TransCore Freight Index is a measure of truckload freight volume found on load boards supported by the DAT Network, including 3sixty Freight Match and TruckersEdge.net as well as LinkLogistics, the company’s Canadian subsidiary.

TransCore’s Freight Index also showed a 44% month-over-month increase in freight availability on the spot market when compared to February. An increase is typical from February to March, but this month’s change was more dramatic than in previous years. It was especially notable because spot freight availability achieved near-record levels in February.

Load-to-truck ratios on the spot market have been trending upward since February 2009, and the March ratio of 5.76 loads per truck in the U.S. and Canada was more than five times the ratio of 0.97 recorded in the same month last year. During Q1 2009, there was fewer than one load per available truck, a result of the economic turmoil that slowed freight and led carriers to post trucks more aggressively than usual on the various load boards that feed TransCore’s DAT Network.

TransCore’s spot market load-to-truck ratio for March exceeded 5.75 loads per truck, due to a surge in load postings for all equipment types. Flatbed load postings increased by 62% from February to March, while flatbed equipment postings declined by 14% during the same period.