Truck tonnage calculated by the American Trucking Associations increased 4.2 percent in December from a year earlier, ATA said Jan. 25.
In its monthly seasonally adjusted for-hire truck tonnage report, ATA said the December index was the highest since September 2008. December’s index increased 2.2 percent from November.
For 2010, tonnage rose 5.7 percent from the previous year. Tonnage declined 8.7 percent in 2009.
The not seasonally adjusted index, which measures the change in tonnage hauled before any seasonal adjustment, dropped 1 percent in December from the previous month.
“Fleets continue to tell me that freight volumes are very choppy – up one week, but down the next,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said in a news release. “I continue to expect truck freight tonnage to grow modestly during the first half of 2011 and accelerate in the later half of the year into 2012.”
