Truckload rates up 3.6% in June

Truckload pricing will increase between 4 percent and 9 percent through the remainder of 2015 despite a slight deceleration in spot rate growth, according to investment firm Avondale Partners.    Truckload rates increased 3.6 percent in June 2015 compared to June 2014, according to the latest Cass Truckload Linehaul Index. Cass Information Systems Inc., a transportation intelligence analyst, said the June 2014 reading already represented a 5.2 percent increase compared with June 2013.
   The company attributed the continued growth in rates to continued growth in demand and capacity remaining “extraordinarily” tight. As a result, Cass expects it will “continue to see contract rate increases filter into our index at higher levels.”
   Year-over-year truckload rates in May and April increased 3.5 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.
   Investment firm Avondale Partners said of the June index reading, “We would point out that contract pricing (which applies to 95+ percent of the public carriers’ freight) has been accelerating after a drawn-out bid season last year.
   “As a result, although spot market pricing has decelerated somewhat (it remains strong), we see TL pricing increasing between 4% and 9% in 2015, depending on how much rate increase each carrier was successful in obtaining in 2014 and when those rate increases were achieved.”