FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index improves in August due to fuel, softer freight rates

FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index rose in August to 2.9 from the 0.5 reading in July due to falling fuel costs and weaker freight rates. Factors that tend to have a more indirect impact on shippers – freight volume and capacity utilization – were nearly neutral contributors during the month.

Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, commented, “A shipper-friendly market is hanging on, and we see few clear signs that the situation will change much soon. Our outlook is for a more neutral environment in 2025, but we do not see much on the horizon that will make for more than just a marginally unfavorable market for shippers overall.”

The September FTR’s Shippers Update, published October 6, discusses the likely divergence of active trucking capacity and the number of employee truck drivers.

The Shippers Conditions Index tracks the changes representing four major conditions in the U.S. full-load freight market. These conditions are freight demand, freight rates, fleet capacity, and fuel price. The individual metrics are combined into a single index that tracks the market conditions that influence the shippers’ freight transport environment. A positive score represents good, optimistic conditions. A negative score represents bad, pessimistic conditions. The index summarizes the industry’s health at a glance.