The American Trucking Association (ATA) reported a big jump in its seasonally adjusted for-hire truck tonnage index for February. Up 7.2% month-to-month, year-to-date tonnage is up 4.8%. The association’s Economist cautioned however that the February jump was likely the result of a weaker than average January, which declined 0.3% from December.
There is a lot of economic data coming in providing a hint of what’s coming in the second quarter that will impact the transportation and logistics industry. Let’s take a look at the highlights.
The bad news: the rest of the world is struggling in a weak economy as China slows and oil prices bottom out. The good news: the U.S is putting along with a barely positive GDP of 0.7 percent annualized in the fourth quarter. After further revision the GDP number could slip further to 0.5percent. The slowdown is impacting the demand for logistics services as we will explore later.
Change is inevitable and it’s happening faster than ever. Over his 35+ years in the transportation industry, Chuck Moyer has learned to monitor trends in the industry and to forecast the ones that will have the greatest impact.
More and more companies are offering their customers delivery options. CoolBlue offers "Ordered today, delivered tonight" service, for example. In the construction sector, it's: "Ordered today, delivered to the site between 7 and 9 tomorrow morning" – unless you'd rather pick up your package at the pick-up point yourself tonight. Agreed is agreed.