The news: Eighteen of North America’s largest carriers reported over the past few weeks, across parcel, trucking, rail, brokerage and ocean. Most raised or held their outlook for the year.
Nearly none did it because they expected to move more freight. C.H. Robinson, the largest US freight brokerage, called this “the trough of the freight market demand cycle.”
Rates are climbing anyway. Robinson said on its earnings call that DAT spot rates excluding fuel rose about 34% year over year last quarter. But the Cass Freight Shipment Index has now fallen year over year for 15 straight quarters.
Carriers give the same explanation for both numbers. Trucks are leaving the road faster than freight is disappearing. If they are right, a shipper bidding freight this fall is buying into a tighter market than the demand data alone would suggest.
The results are mostly second quarter, reported between mid-July and early August, though FedEx reported its fiscal fourth quarter in late June and ONE its fiscal first. Landstar, J.B. Hunt and Norfolk Southern give no full-year guidance to raise. The Cass Index covers domestic modes, about half of it truckload, so it leaves out the ocean volumes below.
The pattern: Eight themes came up across the calls, and carriers agree on all of them.
Truckload contracts reprice up. Schneider’s renewals hit double digits last quarter, and Knight-Swift’s over-the-road business posted double-digit year-over-year rate gains in June as new bids took effect. Werner guided its one-way rates up 10% to 13% for the third quarter.
Capacity is still leaving. Enforcement this year has targeted non-domiciled commercial licenses, foreign drivers hauling domestic loads illegally, and diploma-mill driving schools. Werner counted more than 700 federal investigations and over 400 carriers agreeing to shut down. Schneider says roughly half the non-compliant capacity has yet to exit. It estimates visa actions removed about 30,000 drivers.
Cheap capacity is now a legal risk. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in May that federal law does not shield brokers from state lawsuits over hiring unsafe carriers. Carriers say freight is consolidating toward big, compliant fleets as a result.
The big fleets say they cannot add trucks at these rates. Werner cut its own fleet-growth plan because it cannot seat trucks, and Schneider will not regrow its fleet yet. Ryder expects used-truck pricing to keep climbing into 2027.
Rail expects truck freight to come its way. Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, CN and CPKC all said so. UP added that its biggest intermodal opportunity comes at the next bid season, so today’s intermodal contracts are still priced off the looser market.
What's unclear: The same carriers are split on what happens next.
Does demand come back this year? Werner says retail inventories are “no longer bloated” and stores have to restock. Schneider calls demand “largely stable,” while ArcBest has “not yet seen a broad-based inflection in industrial demand.” XPO says twice as many of its customers expect a second-half pickup as its earlier surveys showed.
What happens to imports? Union Pacific expects international intermodal to turn positive in the second half, but Norfolk Southern says trade uncertainty keeps weighing on it. CN expects Vancouver weakness and is walking away from low-margin container business there, while CPKC expects growth at the same port.
Is the import surge real demand? Matson’s China volumes rose 15%, and it expects its ships to run near capacity through peak. But ONE, which tripled its full-year profit forecast to $900 million, credits front-loading ahead of tariff and fuel-surcharge changes. And it books five times more profit in the first half than the second.
The counter: Every quote here comes from someone selling freight, and carriers make more money when shippers believe capacity is scarce. We pulled no independent capacity or rate series ourselves.
The Cass and DAT numbers reach this piece through carriers’ own citations of them. Spot rates and tender rejections are publicly measurable, but we did not independently verify them.
Nobody scaled the exit numbers either. Four hundred-plus carriers and 30,000 drivers sound large, but no one on these calls said what share of the market that represents. And FMCSA publishes the active carrier count that would settle it.
Some evidence cuts the other way. Landstar is adding owner-operator trucks at its fastest pace since early 2022, which suggests capacity may be moving to compliant fleets rather than leaving.
C.H. Robinson, which called the trough, built its operating income range on 0% to 5% market volume growth. It then committed to the low end of that range on a market it puts at minus 3%.
The squeeze can also end two ways. If ONE is right that the transpacific surge is front-loaded, volumes fall in the back half just as contracts reprice. And the enforcement driving the capacity exit can slow or stall in court, in which case the supply story goes with it.
What’s next: Intermodal reprices at the next bid season, which Union Pacific has named as its biggest opportunity. So, the current gap between intermodal and truckload rates is a closing discount rather than a standing one. Peak comes before that, and UPS, J.B. Hunt and Matson are all planning for an ordinary one.
