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.
Market watch
Indianapolis
Heading into September and a holiday weekend, outbound freight levels in Indianapolis are taking a nosedive. Overnight, outbound tender volumes dropped 4.5% to their lowest levels since December 2021. Inbound volumes, however, are beginning to trend upward, putting only a 4.6% difference between the two.
The offset in volumes has caused the Headhaul Index in Indianapolis to plummet, falling 59.2% to 11.3, its lowest score in the past 60 days. Rejection rates are up more than 30 basis points, though, to 7%, indicating that carriers are trying to put upward pressure on spot rates out of Indianapolis.
Greenville, South Carolina
In the Southeast, Greenville is heating up in preparation for the holiday weekend.
The Outbound Tender Volume Index catapulted 14.5% overnight into September. Inbound loads are starting to trend downward, though, dropping 4% since the start of the week.
The disparity between inbound and outbound volume levels heaved the Headhaul Index up 167.2% to 33.7, its highest score since April.
The boost in outbound volumes has tightened capacity and increased rejections 190 bps since the start of the week to 7.1% — well above the national average of 5.6%.
“We are showing a 3-to-1 truck ratio out of this market this Friday,” said Justin Wandell, vice president of logistics at Axle Logistics. “There is still plenty of capacity headed into the holiday weekend, and the spike looks more elevated due to compressed holiday volume. The key is to cover the trucks early and get them moving before the holiday weekend starts.”
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.
Lane to watch: Memphis, Tennessee to Greenville
Outbound tender volumes leaving Memphis are up 16.7% this week, and spot rates from Memphis to Greenville remained consistent leading into September at or around $2.94 a mile.
Rejections from Memphis to Greenville are beginning to trend down, however, falling roughly 40 bps to 5.8%. This decrease in rejections will begin to put downward pressure on these elevated spot rates, but they still remain 32 cents above the national average with a confidence score of 3.
