PORTLAND, Ore. -- Truck load freight continued to increase nationwide for flatbeds on TransCore’s DAT Network of load boards for the week ending January 29, while freight availability remained stable for refrigerated (“reefer”) and dry vans, compared to the previous week.

Flatbed load availability and truck capacity drove overall totals up for load and truck postings, week over week, as both volume and capacity rose in tandem for the third consecutive week. Unlike the two previous weeks, however, this week’s increased demand for truckload freight services was not matched by substantial increases in capacity for any individual equipment type. Flatbed capacity remained stable, while both reefer and van capacity grew by 2.3%.

TransCore Trendlines, the company’s weekly newsletter covering key spot market indicators, showed that truck loads increased by 3.1 percent and truck postings grew by 2.4 percent, week over week. The weekly load-to-truck ratio, a key indicator, remained stable above 4.9 truckloads per available truck nationwide. This was due to an increase of 6.7 percent in the flatbed ratio coupled with a decline in the load-to-truck ratios for both reefers and vans.

TransCore Trendlines is a free, weekly newsletter with load-to-truck ratios, spot market and contract market rates, and other key indicators from TransCore's U.S. Freight Index, the standard spot freight market barometer. It is based on more than 60 million loads and trucks listed annually on the DAT Network of load boards by freight brokers, 3PLs, shippers and carriers across the U.S. TransCore Trendlines also includes industry data from the American Trucking Association and the U.S. Department of Energy.