- Transportation
In 2021, The United States trucking industry generated over $400 billion in revenues. As the economy cycles through waves of contractions and expansions, the transportation industry moves through cycles of slack and tension. This research quantifies the relationship between TL market tension metrics and key LTL metrics on a national and corridor level. To evaluate the strength of the relationship between the variables we used Pearson's correlation. Our models spanned 6 years of data and used public national LTL carrier data as well private C.H. Robinson data. The research found a positive, statistically significant correlation for key truckload metrics, including from the contract market (route guide depth) and the spot market (cost per mile and load to truck ratio), especially when lagged 1-3 months. We find this relationship to be true for national public LTL carrier data as well as private C.H. Robinson data. However, because the cost per mile data is correlated with future LTL volume and LTL volume is correlated with future cost per mile, we believe route guide depth and load to truck ratio to be better bellwether indicators.