FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index stayed close to neutral in April

FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index remained close to neutral in April, declining to -0.6 from +0.1 in March. Weaker freight volumes were a plus for shippers, but all other underlying SCI factors were less favorable than they were in March. The overall index has been close to neutral throughout 2025 even though index components have shifted notably.

Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, commented, “With the tariff-avoidance phase now over and geopolitical developments taking a higher profile, we expect more variability in freight market conditions for shippers than we have seen for 2025 so far. Certainly, fuel costs have been highly volatile recently, but freight dynamics also seem less predictable. Tariff policies are still up in the air, and the stimulative effects of the presumed enactment of a tax bill are unclear. Also, an apparent sharp rise in truckers’ insurance premiums could begin to affect capacity in addition to the newly heightened scrutiny over drivers’ English language skills that we have noted previously.”

The June FTR’s Shippers Update, published June 6, includes a discussion analyzing the possible impact on driver capacity of treating inadequate English skills as an out-of-service violation.

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.