There are approximately 540,000 truckload carriers registered with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in the United States. These range from 1 truck to 20,000 truck fleets. The majority have less than 20 pieces of equipment in their fleets. These companies generated approximately $350 billion in revenue in 2018.

Revenue/Tonnage Growth in 2018

Here is a link to the top 50 truckload carriers in the United States and Canada that are listed in Transport Topics (https://www.ttnews.com/top100/tl/2018). Swift Transportation, Schneider National, Landstar System, J.B. Hunt Transportation Services, and Penske Logistics are the five largest US based truckload carriers; TFI (formerly TransForce International), Mullen Group, Canada Cartage, Bison Transport and Challenger Motor Freight are Canada’s largest truckload operators. It should be noted that TFI that has its head office in Canada now derives a significant share of its revenues from the United States.

The truckload sector of the freight industry is different from the LTL and small parcel segments in two significant ways. Unlike the other two segments, anyone who can buy or finance the purchase of a tractor-trailer unit and can drive the rig, can enter the industry. Freed from the requirement to build cross-dock facilities and/or buy sorting machines, the barriers to entry are low.

There are approximately 540,000 truckload carriers registered with the Federal Motor carrier Safety Administration in the United States. These range from 1 truck to 20,000 truck fleets. The majority have less than 20 pieces of equipment in their fleets. These companies are projected to generate $358.6 billion in revenue in 2018. The comparable Canadian number would probably be in the range of ten percent of these numbers. The truckload sector is about ten times the size of the LTL sector.

Revenue/Tonnage Growth in 2018

The implementation of the FMCSA’s ELD mandate in the United States on December 18 was one of the most anticipated milestones in the history of trucking. The introduction of electronic logging devices is the latest attempt by the FMCSA to improve road safety and minimize road accidents in the United States. Driver fatigue is believed to be the biggest cause of road accidents. The FMCSA had previously specified Hours of Service (HOS) rules and regulations that limit how many hours a driver can drive in a day.

However, the problem is that Hours of Service were recorded with paper logs and, therefore, could be easily manipulated and falsified. ELDs are designed to eliminate paper logs and record driver duty statuses and HOS information automatically. Moreover, they are supposed to be tamper-resistant, so the recorded information cannot be altered by anyone.

Late last year, pre-mandate, the smaller fleets were wary of the decrease in miles per day and thereby the reduction in their profit margins. The word on the street was that there would be an exodus of smaller trucking companies when the regulations came into force.

The truckload sector of the freight industry is different from the LTL and small parcel segments in one important respect. Unlike the other two segments, anyone who can buy or finance the purchase of a tractor-trailer unit and drive the rig, can enter the industry. Freed from the requirement to build cross-dock facilities and/or buy sorting machines, the barriers to entry are low and there are thousands of truckload carriers throughout North America. Nevertheless, the industry has had its challenges over the last couple of years.

Revenues Dropped in 2015 and 2016

Here are links to the top 100 carriers in the United States (http://resources.inboundlogistics.com/digital/trucking_top100_chart_0916.pdf ) and Canada (http://www.todaystrucking.com/top100 ). The top 50 truckload carriers in the United States are listed in the March 20, 2017 issue of the Journal of Commerce. Altogether, the combined revenue of the Top 25 Truckload Carriers dropped 1 percent last year, to $26.9 billion, after falling 2.3 percent, to $27.1 billion, in 2015.

Swift Transportation, Schneider National, J.B. Hunt Transportation Services, Landstar System and Crete are the five largest US based carriers; TFI (formerly TransForce International), Mullen Group, TransX, Trimac Group and Bison Transport are Canada’s largest truckload carriers. It should be noted that TFI now derives roughly 50% of its revenues from the United States.

Revenue declined last year at 15 of the companies on The Journal of Commerce’s Top 25 US Truckload Carriers rankings, according to SJ Consulting Group, which prepared the data. That’s an improvement compared to 2015, when revenue fell at 19 companies. As an indicator of the weakness in pricing last year, the Cass Truckload Linehaul Index, a measure of truckload pricing excluding fuel surcharges, turned negative in March 2016 and declined for 11 straight months.

Dr. Richard Mikes, Managing Partner of Transport Capital Partners (TCP) recently spoke on the subject of the Truckload Market on a conference call hosted by Stifel Nicolaus & Company.  Here are some excerpts from the survey results presented by Mr. Mikes. 

“The freight rate market as a whole started switching directions about a year ago. In other words, the share of the carriers reporting that their freight rates are increasing has just dropped from a high of about 80% to a low of about 10% this past month. Accordingly, we would classify rates as being stuck in neutral. Three quarters of the firms are now reporting that rates have remained the same, certainly a massive change from a year ago.”

The survey segmented carriers into two groups, those under $25 million and those over $25 million in revenue.  “Interestingly, the … (data) . . .  presents “a real divergence in rate changes. Though both large and small carriers are largely keeping rates the same, there is a spattering of smaller carriers reporting rate decreases of 5%, 10%, or even 15%. Those numbers total only 18%, but they still tell the story. The pressure is on the smaller carriers.”

The FTR survey asked carriers to indicate their expectations with respect to volume.  “After a nice bounce this quarter, about 52% of carriers expect volumes to increase over the next 12 months and a similar number expect them to remain the same. Very few say volumes will actually decrease.

The survey then looked at what carriers plan to do with respect to adding capacity in this predicted environment. “The number of carriers saying they will not add capacity remained largely constant with a temporary spike around the . . . (U.S.) . . . election. It jumped up to almost 50% around election time. Those were the feelings in the moment.