FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index improves in September to 2024’s strongest level

FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index improved in September to 4.6 from the 2.9 reading in August due to lower fuel costs, looser capacity and lower freight rates. The SCI was at its strongest level of the year in September, but FTR still expects readings to be weaker and closer to neutral through the two-year forecast period.

Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, commented, “The fact that September’s index is the strongest since last December is not a sign that shippers’ market conditions are steadily improving. September and May were modest outliers this year in a market that is at least becoming more balanced. We expect that trend to continue and for SCI readings to be mostly negative to neutral in 2025 and 2026. However, markets in transition tend to be volatile, so further outliers are likely and possibly in both directions. The supply chain implications of tariffs are a wild card for 2025 especially.”

The October FTR’s Shippers Update, published November 7, discusses the dynamics of the spot market and what it might signal about capacity.

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.