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SONAR Sightings for June 17: NTI, Market Dashboard updates, more

The highlights from Friday’s SONAR reports are below. For more information on SONAR — the fastest freight-forecasting platform in the industry — or to request a demo, click here. Also, be sure to check out the latest SONAR update, TRAC — the freshest spot rate data in the industry.

NTI as a point of reference

The National Truckload Index is a daily look at how spot rates in specific lanes hold up in comparison to the national average, giving carriers and brokers an idea of which lanes to gravitate toward or avoid.

Friday’s National Truckload Index Daily: $2.94


Columbus, Ohio to Denver: $3.34 a mile – 1,276 miles

  • After spot market rates began to drop at the beginning of March as most did, this lane bottomed out right around $3.20 per mile through the month of May. They have since stayed consistent and recently began to rise to its current value 40 cents above the national average.
  • The Outbound Tender Volume Index for Columbus has remained constant through the last seven days at 265.8, with rejections rising to 6.7% in the last couple of days.
  • Denver’s Outbound Tender Volume Index, on the other hand, has also plateaued, but at or around 220 and has fallen slightly in the last couple of days to 212.1. However, rejections have risen to 10.9% this week. This rise in rejection rates signifies tightening in the market, which will place upward pressure on rates out of Denver.

Atlanta to Memphis: $3.05 a mile – 399 miles

  • Spot rates from Memphis to Atlanta have been inching upward since bottoming out at $2.88 in the beginning of May, rising to 11 cents higher than the current national average. If capacity tightens and volume rises out of Atlanta, current spot rates will continue to remain constant or push upward.
  • The outbound tender volume for Atlanta in the last 30 days has risen 6% overall, causing rejections to rise in the last couple of days to 7.8%.
  • On the back end of the lane, Memphis’ Outbound Tender Volume Index has seen 5% growth in the last 30 days, currently at 202.33. But it has seen a drop in rejections to 7%.

Watch: Carrier update


SONAR updates to the Market Dashboard

After receiving customer feedback, there have been a few improvements to the Market Dashboard within SONAR. If you have a couple of markets on a list to try out but are not sure which one to make the origin and which to place as the destination, SONAR has made it easy to go flip the two locations without having to manually type them in.


New input options were also added to the Margin Calculator. Now the Sell Price can be entered in order to compare the market rates or preferred cost markup percentage.


Users can now select the high, low or current rate in the margin calculator to give more flexibility in which TRAC rate you want to use.


New features also include enhancing the visibility of how spot rates have changed over the course of either selected time frame. The options include seven-day or 28-day rolling averages including a percent of change to the previous seven- or 28-day rolling averages.


SCI update

A new threshold selection on the Opportunity view allows users better visibility to weigh risk in a particular lane. The options are Standard, Moderate or Maximum in order to analyze the threshold chance and risk level.

There are also new custom field options. Users can upload a custom field for any lane of their choosing and interact with the user interface. Being able to filter, search or sort through lanes is more efficient than ever.


Corey Smith

Corey is a staff writer for FreightWaves with experience in air, intermodal and parcel operations, as well as LTL and full truckload transportation management. He is a graduate of the University of Memphis, majoring in supply chain management, and enjoys basketball, cinema and traveling.