ATA Truck Tonnage Index Slips 0.3% Sequentially in April
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The freight market returned tepid results amid choppy market conditions in April, reported.
The ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index slipped 0.3% sequentially to 113 from 113.3 the prior month but increased 0.1% from the same time in 2024. While slight, the annual gain marked the index’s fourth straight year-over-year increase.
“After surging 2.8% in February and hitting the highest level since late May 2024, tonnage fell a combined 1.8% in March and April,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said. “Unfortunately, a recovery that was expected this year hasn’t transpired as the industry deals with a freight market in flux from tariffs and softening economic indicators.”
Tonnage declined 2.2% sequentially to 112 when not adjusted for seasonality. ATA calculates its monthly tonnage index based on feedback from carriers hauling contract freight. In calculating the index, 100 represents 2015.
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello says the expected freight turnaround in 2025 hasn't materialized. (Truckload Carriers Association)
Economic uncertainty fueled by President Donald Trump’s shifts on tariffs the U.S. is levying against its global trading partners is hampering broader growth, noted Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University.
“In a $30 trillion economy where almost $20 trillion is consumption, 75% of that is services, grocery or gasoline, and that is not impacted by tariffs,” he said. “People are still spending money on health care, they are still eating out. But when you look six months ahead, you are getting advanced indicators that people will be little bit more cautious about spending money.”
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Trump recently struck a 90-day deal with China to lower tariffs against that country from 145% to 30%. Dhawan is optimistic this move will help steady economic activity and stock market jitters during the second half of the year.
The up-and-down nature of these moves upset a year that started off good for trucking, noted Jason Miller, interim chairman of the Department of Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University.
“The year started off actually quite strong from a carrier pricing standpoint,” he said, pointing specifically to industrial production in sectors like the chemical industry that saw early-year gains trail off in April. He suggested that momentum from those early-market tailwinds have begun to fade amid tariff-induced economic uncertainty. He expects factory output to decline due to high inventories.
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“If there is a lot of uncertainty, the natural reaction is to curtail investments that have some degree of [being irreversible] like buying equipment,” he said. “To me, that’s the biggest concern right now at the moment, far more so than inflation from tariffs.”
The found that April shipments decreased 3.6% year over year to 1.058 from 1.098 but that was a 0.4% sequential increase from 1.054 in March. Cass noted that Trump’s trade war is expected to send international freight volume significantly downward in May and June, followed by a likely rebound in the third quarter in the aftermath of the 90-day deal between the U.S. and China.
Jonathan Phares, assistant professor of supply chain management at Iowa State University, said that while some companies have pulled purchases forward to avoid tariffs, he also is hearing that large brokerage firms are seeing retail tenders increase from year-ago levels primarily due to tariff worries.
“I just don’t know that we’re at the end of the freight downturn because many of these higher tariffs have yet to go into place,” Phares said. “While there’s been flip-flopping, and some tariffs being rolled back — [including] tariffs against China, being a major supplier for U.S. imports — it has the potential to really negatively impact freight in May and beyond.”
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