Tag: rates: Page 8

Channel 19

Time and cost, redux: Where the owner-op is the smartest guy — in a roomful of carrier execs

So, what is your time worth? Turns out, it’s likely a lot more owner-operators have a clear sense of that than fleet execs when it comes to the trucking business.

June 4, 2019

Business

Spot market: Signs of life for van, reefer rates as typical June uptick approaches?

Rates were higher on 54 of the top 100 van lanes compared to the previous week and the national average van load-to-truck ratio rose from 1.6 to 1.8. There are encouraging signs, but that’s still below expectations for the time of the year.

May 30, 2019

Business

Volumes are high on the spot market, but rates are unmoved with an abundance of capacity

The weather is warming up and the freight is out there — in fact, van freight volumes for May are as high as they’ve ever been. But an abundance of capacity continued to keep spot truckload rates at less-than-stellar levels — and falling for vans compared to the April average — during the week ending May 19,

May 24, 2019

Overdrive Extra

When changing freight lanes, don’t forget to think differently, too

Quick-changing freight conditions affect carriers large and small, and faster than they ever did before as tech greases the change skids. The people who are going to adjust best, as has always been the case, will be independent thinkers with high-level critical thinking skills in the toolbox.

May 23, 2019

Overdrive Radio

Runaway recounted down Sandstone Mountain, and: Revisiting a quite accurate spot rate prediction pre-ELDs

Podcast: Lee Epling urges caution pointing the finger at this or that cause, or piling on the driver, before all the facts are known in the Colo. crash case, sharing his own brake-failure story on Sandstone Mountain in W.Va./Va. on I-64; Also: Monte Wiederhold’s quite accurate 2017 rates prediction relative to ELDs.

May 13, 2019

Business

Mike Landis: Managing sticky situations in food-grade liquid bulk

The independent fell into his current dedicated hauling for a tank fleet based near his hometown in Lititz, Pa., hauling reefer freight in a trailer he owned. A mutual associate recommended his Landis & Sons one-truck business years ago to the tank fleet. Now, “They almost dispatch me as if I was one of their trucks.”

May 10, 2019

Business

After preceding week’s rise in volumes, van and reefer rates reversed downward course

There was finally a bit of a turnaround in the van and reefer markets last week when it comes to rates. After volumes built the preceding week, better weather combined with a 4.2% jump in the number of available loads to push rates higher during the week ending May 5.

May 8, 2019

Voices

Rates hack: The spot market 3 o’clock hustle

Though it’s certainly lost some of its luster now that mandated electronic logging devices are putting more value on planning loads for maximizing time efficiency, this scheduling hack from independent Chad Boblett is simple enough. It hinges on an old cliché: The best things come to those who wait.

May 2, 2019

Business

Though spot rates remained flat, the last week saw demand dynamics change favorably as volumes grew

Posted load counts grew by a percent, while the number of available trucks fell 4%. There still was plenty capacity to meet demand, though, as national average spot rates ended the last full week of April at or below their averages for the month of March in all segments

May 2, 2019

Channel 19

What Isaac Ho did to prepare for the rates crash on the spot market

The past year’s fortune — and recent rates struggles, with so many others in spot freight — for one young own-authority business, with a keen eye toward controlling costs to get through any lean times. No. 1 action taken: He paid off his used-purchased 2015 Volvo entirely.

April 29, 2019

Channel 19

Round-up: When a negative for investors is a positive for drivers, and early look at fully-electric Mack truck

Driver pay is bringing more cost to carriers, and that’s a good thing. Take the good with the bad, though: Freight outlook for the year, judging by the past few, isn’t great. Also: Mack’s first LR all-electric refuse truck goes to NYC sanitation, brief video ahead of WasteExpo next month.

April 23, 2019

Business

Spring has not sprung, to say the least, when it comes to vans, reefers on the spot market

National average spot van and refrigerated freight rates slipped again during the week ending April 13. The number of load posts fell 4 percent while truck posts increased. The arrival of produce season in several southern markets failed to make up for the effects of more capacity and bad weather.

April 17, 2019