FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index Stays Positive in August

FTR’s Shippers Conditions Index (SCI) remained positive in August improving to a 5.0 reading up from 4.5 in July. Core freight conditions – demand, capacity, utilization, and freight rates were mildly favorable for the month, but the biggest boost to the shipper environment came from falling diesel prices.

The outlook is for market conditions to hover around the neutral territory with some slightly positive and some slightly negative readings through 2023 when readings are expected to become more solidly negative.

Todd Tranausky, vice president of rail and intermodal at FTR, commented, “Shippers face multiple rounds of uncertainty in the coming months as diesel prices turn back higher and the harvest competes for capacity with other freight, while overall active trucking utilization eases back toward its historical average.”

The October issue of FTR’s Shippers Update, published October 7, provides a detailed analysis of the factors affecting the July Shippers Conditions Index and provides the forecast for this index through August of 2023. The October issue also includes key takeaways from FTR’s September Transportation Conference that suggest that the market is likely normalizing but not collapsing.

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 tells you the industry’s health at a glance.