Freight news in typical winter down periods is sometimes scant, or just clicking along in the background of the day-to-day with outlooks for the rest of any given year. This year's been a bit different given the tariff headlines and the prospects of trucking coming out a long period of relative rates stagnation. New tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports (generating a lot of freight in the U.S., for certain) and new levies on Chinese goods might well have contributed to spot load availability gains in the last couple of weeks, judging by the broad spot averages, as importers moved to get freight across the border to avoid paying the toll, as it were.
From Truckstop and FTR Transportation Intelligence's weekly spot-market snapshot, load availability and rates broadly were both up last week:
That makes two week in a row all of the indicators were flashing green, with loads/demand rising 11%-plus the prior week, adding another 6.5% this week as shown. The average spot rate all around the nation, regardless of equipment type, was up to $2.31 as of the end of last week.Truckstop/FTR
Spot markets remain, as has been the rule of late, a bit of a mixed bag, though, once you dig into the details in the Truckstop/FTR weekly report. Reefer and dry van rates both edged down a bit, with national gains driven by flatbed volume and rates rising.
DAT Chief of Analytics Ken Adamo underscored some of the tariff dynamics, specifically as it relates to spot load activity for cross-border moves to and from Canada, sharing the following graphic on his LinkedIn profile yesterday morning as the new tariffs went into effect.
What he called "red-hot Canadian cross-border rates," nonetheless, aren't "moving the needle much nationally."Ken Adamo/DAT
In another LinkedIn share, Adamo said what so many owner-operators have felt for a couple years now. "I can't think of another time in my career when rates were this 'stuck'," he wrote.
Cross-border might be helping a bit, yet nationally rates growth still seems out of reach. "My best guess is that the volatility in policy with the new administration has businesses hesitant to place bigger bets," he added, echoing other market watchers. Yet Adamo remained cautiously optimistic. "I still think tailwinds are coming as we get into the Spring shipping season, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't question that multiple times last month."
Here's to a little of that cautious optimism, as it were, justifiable for owner-operators in the current moment, yet also presenting an opportunity to double down on the things that can be controlled by any individual small business trucker.
What if you could give yourself an immediate seven cents/mile rates bump?
Increasing efficiency is a multifaceted project, as small fleet owner-operator Alec Costerus so deftly detailed last year right here in Overdrive Extra.
[Related: In a tough trucking-business environment, owner-operators must improve efficiency to compete]
There's a lot that can be done, but what turns the most heads about the 2024 Trucker of the Year semi-finalist Costerus' prescription for better efficiency is the 10-mpg-plus fuel mileage he and Joel Morrow and their Alpha Drivers Transportation business have squeezed out of Class 8 equipment through a combination of spec'ing, modification, behind-the-wheel technique, training and operational considerations.
Increasing fuel efficiency is certainly within the realm of possibility for everybody here. What's it worth at today's rates? For a hypothetical I grabbed cost figures from our Partners in Business coproducer ATBS's mid-year 2024 presentation, computing a fixed-cost-per-day-worked figure (using a conservative 220 days worked annually) of $256. (Your own fixed costs may be higher or lower -- the ATBS figure includes the broad average of all clients, including both leased and independent owners.)
The average owner-operator spent around 73 cents/mile, then, on variable costs, according that same mid-2024 computation, the large majority of that (57 cents/mile) on fuel. ATBS clients averaged as of mid-year 2024 right around seven mpg for fuel mileage. What might a gain of just a single mile per gallon to eight mpg for that average owner-operator be worth? The most basic answer is about seven cents/mile, to get fuel spend down to just a couple quarters/mile.
What does that look like in terms of a profit boost? I dropped it all into our Load Profit Analyzer tool to make the following comparison -- for a single load moved from Dallas to Chicago (~950 miles) at today's national average spot rate of $2.31/mile, skipping the Analyzer's salary cost input field to focus solely on the impact of reduced variable costs with fuel-mileage gains.
This approximate two-day run, being conservative there and allowing plenty time spent loading and unloading, would net the eight-mpg owner an extra $66, or $33 daily. It doesn't seem like much on day-to-day basis, but multiply that by by 220 days under load in an entire year -- and some of you I know spend well more time out than that -- and the potential is huge over the long term. (I wouldn't turn down an extra $7,260 if someone offered it, would you?)
[Related: Trucking in the freight trough: The 'sweetness of low price' v. 'the sour of bad service']
A single mile-per-gallon boost in efficiency is achievable in various ways -- February Trucker of the Month Kenny Wingate added a "whale tail" fairing to his mid-roof 2020 Pete 579, pulling a reefer, to increase aerodynamics and almost got there, netting 0.7 mpg for his own average with just that addition. Installed himself, it began to produce real returns in just a few months.
What would an increase to the admittedly sometimes magical-seeming 10 mpg be worth? You'd save a whopping 30 percent on fuel spend -- for that average ATBS client just more than 17 cents per mile.
Rinse and repeat: The extra approximate $80/day net x 220 days under load annually: $17,600 on the bottom line. Real difference-making income. Getting there overnight isn't an easily achievable task, but looking out at uncertainty in 2025, here's to some goal-setting.
Use your own cost numbers to compare loads or game out rate scenarios and the like with Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer at this link.
[Related: Paths to 10-plus mpg in a Class 8 diesel tractor with downspeeding, aero, more]
Find more advice on a myriad of owner-operator business topics in the most recent edition of the Overdrive/ATBS coproduction of the "Partners in Business" book. Download it here.
