PORTLAND, Ore. -- Truckload freight rates started to rebound on the spot market from a mid-January low, according to this week’s TransCore Trendlines report. Nationally, van rates moved up with a $0.03 increase per mile, a significant uptick since the start of the New Year, although they are still down $0.02 from their December average.

Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles remained the top three key market areas, although with decidedly different trends. Key market areas, or KMAs, are typically urban areas with a significant volume of inbound and outbound truck freight. The top five KMAs are Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

Freight volume from Chicago increased, as did rates, with vans from Chicago to Los Angeles gaining $0.08 per mile. The Windy City displaced Los Angeles. as the top outbound market, where rates have declined 6.9 percent since late November, as spot market freight volume hasn’t kept up with available capacity. In the last two weeks, Atlanta’s rates fell 5.7 percent from December.

TransCore’s truckload rate trend of the week is taken from the company’s Truckload Rate Index, based on $4 billion in actual invoices updated daily for vans, reefers and flatbeds across the U.S. and Canada. The truckload rate trend of the week is a feature of TransCore Trendlines a free, weekly subscription with key indicators from TransCore's U.S. Freight Index, the standard spot freight market barometer based on more than 60 million loads and trucks listed annually 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.