There was less freight moving, and fewer trucks operating, during the Thanksgiving week on the whole. Yet, notes DAT’s Ken Harper with this week’s spot market demand update, the week leading into Thanksgiving saw a record number of loads moving on the top 100 van lanes — van demand, measured by the ratio of posted loads to posted trucks on DAT Load Boards, remained sky high.
On 73 of the top 100 van lanes, Harper noted, activity was actually higher last week and national average van rates actually rose given the premium shippers/brokers paid for loads right around Thanksgiving. For the week in full, that average stood at $2.07 per mile.
Flats and reefers also saw positive rate growth, which you’ll see in below the charts.
Hot van markets: A whopping 73 of the top 100 van lanes had higher rates last week. The West Coast has led these trends: As a percentage, outbound rates from Los Angeles, Seattle and Stockton, Calif., rose the most in November. Dallas joined the party last week, with a 6 percent uptick on outbound rates on average. Several high-traffic lanes out of Chicago also had big increases.
Not so hot: There weren’t many declines last week. And for the most part, the lanes that paid less fell only slightly. The biggest drop was on the lane from Los Angeles to Dallas, which fell 15 cents to an average of $2.40 per mile – still high for a lane on which rail is a heavy competitor.
Flatbed overview: Flatbed rates were stable in November, despite falling seasonal volumes. Some of the craziness we saw after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma is gone, and there’s the normal decline in construction activity that happens this time of year. Still, pricing hasn’t dimmed all that much, and the looming ELD mandate probably factors into that.
Hot markets: The relatively brief Christmas tree season has turned regions like Michigan and the Pacific Northwest dark in the Hot States Map for flatbeds. For the month of November, Los Angeles and Savannah, Ga., had the biggest increases in outbound rates, each up 9 percent from the previous month.
