U.S. rental truck tonnage is declining month by month, according to the latest data from the American Trucking Association (ATA), it is still higher than expected in the freight recession.
The non-seasonally adjusted American Transportation Association (ATA) Rental Truck Tonnage Index fell 0.4 percent in January from December, but remained above its January 2021 109.2.
seasonal adjustment led to a small decline in freight volume to 0.7 percent, suggesting that the American Transportation Association expects the decline in freight volume in January to be larger than the actual 0.4 percent decline.
According to the Nikkei News, statistics Datamyne by Descartes, a US research firm, showed that Asia sent 1.4278 million sea containers to the United States in January (calculated by 20-foot containers), a decrease of 17% year-on-year and a decrease from December 2022 (23%).
This is also confirmed by the container availability index CAx. According to data recently released by the global online container leasing and trading platform Container xChange, compared with the past three years, the congestion level of Chinese ports in January this year is higher, which shows that China has more containers available.
Bob Costello, chief economist at ATA, said the "seasonally adjusted gains are attributable to the capacity of the network, particularly those operators that operate primarily in the spot market and/or have purchased expensive used equipment in the past few years, which will drive more freight to contract carriers, which dominate the index."
This change in freight may account for the better-than-expected freight volume in the ATA Index. In addition, some contract carriers are already operating under the new contract route guidance, with lower rates for 2023, which could mean more cargo is moving.
The U.S. manufacturing sector contracted for the third month in a row in January, according to the U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) released by Standard & Poor's Global (S & P Global) in. Housing activity has fallen in the past year, dampening the furniture and appliance markets, which has left these retailers with overstocked inventories. This will cut future industrial shipments.
However, there is little reason for economic indicators to believe that freight volumes are actually rising. The industrial and retail industries that generate trucking are hobbling into 2023.
"Given the higher-than-expected January inflation data, it's hard to make a strong case for housing activity in the coming months," said Jason Miller, an associate professor of logistics at Michigan State University and an analyst at The Business Journal.
Forwardernet.com