In response to the disruption and volatility of the market during the COVID-19 pandemic, flexibility has become crucial to survival for trucking companies.
The country is slowly emerging from the pandemic, with the U.S. averaging 2.5 million vaccine doses a day. That hasn’t yet led to more stable truckload markets, however, and several factors could keep capacity tight for the next few months.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, it quickly became apparent that the ways companies approach transportation procurement and freight bidding were going to have to change — and fast.
While supply chain disruptions continue to create tight truckload freight markets, there are signs that the markets will soften in the weeks and months ahead, according to the Pulse Signal Report from DAT iQ.
Being a freight and analytics organization, we look for clues in data, especially as it relates to truckload capacity. When guaging the direction of commercial freight markets in 2021, there are some indicators that require extra scrutiny this year.
The pandemic has turned many aspects of life upside down, and commercial transportation is no exception. What are the lessons learned from 2020 and will they carry over into 2021? We asked DAT’s team of industry analysts.
The freight market in the past year has been marked by exceptionally tight capacity caused by imbalanced carrier networks, which pushed an historically high number of shipments over to the spot market. That placed a great deal of pressure on contract rates, but there are signs that the pressure is releasing.
The complications COVID-19 created for supply chains could be felt across all aspects of life in 2020, whether you were in the freight industry or shopping for groceries in a store with bare shelves. The public at large became much more aware of the types of problems that trucking and logistics professionals have been solving for decades.
“While the distribution efforts will not impact the majority of the industry, preparation for the post-pandemic world has both demand and supply implications,” according to the December’s Signal Pulse Report from DAT iQ.
