As we continue to see a challenging freight market in the Northwest, and from most shipping points nationwide, we wanted to provide a market update to help explain the reasons for the truck tightness, stronger pricing and the loading delays you may be experiencing. The current challenging freight market is the result of a confluence of factors, see list below the charts. Based on the above factors, DAT Freight & Analytics shows 16 refrigerated loads available per truck in recent weeks, 21 loads per truck since last week, compared to 6 loads per truck in 2020 and 4 loads per truck in 2019. Drivers are much more interested in the 1 drop loads first so it does make it more challenging to cover multi-drop loads in addition to the load to truck disparity. *Tight capacity overall due to: -Strong retail demand -Re balancing of inventory around states reopening -Driver job losses in Q2 2020 from impact of covid -Avg age of truck driver is 55, keeping some home during the pandemic -Extended unemployment benefits making some drivers choose to stay home in place of driving -Production of of new trucks has been interrupted, depleting the nations fleet as older trucks are retired -Increased insurance and maintenance costs -Longer down time due to interrupted supply of replacement parts and labor *More drivers staying local to meet family needs around covid interruption to school, spouse's employment, etc. *Carriers adjusting their lanes to facilitate the new driver needs for shorter runs. *Large carriers sending less trucks to the Northwest for various reasons. (For example, Prime has approximately 500 fewer trucks in the west than it did during the same period in 2020.) *FEMA demands for trucks in TX and other markets after the snow/cold over the last few weeks. *Storms, snow and road closures through the Midwest slowing trucks or delaying returns and back hauls. *Start of high paying nursery loads in NW this week. *Increase in fuel costs (^3%) ***Info from Terrill & Devyn at PPro Sales Freight and Matt Knight, President of PPro Logistics Our team continues to work extremely diligently to book, consolidate, fill and load as quickly as possible to meet your delivery and pricing needs. Hopefully we are communicating in a timely manner to help you plan inventories accordingly but please let us know if and how we can communicate more effectively to help build a sustainable supply chain strategy. Please don't hesitate to contact us with any questions, feedback or how we can be of assistance. If you need any help with freight / trucks for your own loads out of the West Coast, please call Matt Knight and the Pacificpro Logistics team at 509.972.6800 or at logistics@pacificprologistics.com
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