Truck Tonnage Slips 2.1% Sequentially During October
Decrease Is Largest Since January 2024; Tonnage Also Fell 1.8% Year Over Year
Key Takeaways:
- The ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index fell 2.1% in October to its lowest level since early 2025, marking a 1.8% year-over-year drop.
- Additional freight indicators, including the Cass Freight Index and ISM manufacturing data, showed continued contraction driven by weak manufacturing and shifting shipment patterns.
- Analysts said holiday sales may rise mainly due to higher prices, while a court-ordered stay on FMCSA’s non-domiciled CDL rule eased some late October trucking disruptions.
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Freight tonnage continued to slow sequentially in October, reaching its lowest level since the start of the year, Nov. 18.
The ATA For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decreased 2.1% to 111.9 from 114.3 in September. The results also showed a contraction of 1.8% from the prior-year period. When not adjusting for seasonality, tonnage actually increased 3.8% from September to 119.2. The index also showed that year-to-date tonnage is about where it was at this point in 2024.
“October’s weakness shows the freight market remains very difficult, dropping the most of any single month since January 2024,” ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said. “As a result, the level of freight was the lowest since January 2025. Compared with a year earlier, tonnage experienced its largest decline in 2025.”
The was essentially unchanged from the previous month at 57.4. LMI’s report said this lack of movement was caused by downward pressures in inventories and warehousing being offset by upward pressures in transportation. Meanwhile, the found that shipments decreased 7.8% year over year to 0.997 from 1.081 and 4.3% sequentially from 1.042.
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“Cass’ data certainly was not a positive development,” Michigan State University professor Jason Miller said. “They’ve been very clear to highlight that shipment counts are heavily down, with essentially less-than-truckload rates continuing to rise, whereas truckload rates, if they have risen, it’s by a far less substantial degree. What we’re seeing is the consolidation of larger LTL shipments into full truckload shipments. So on a pure sort of freight demand basis, we’re unlikely to be seeing a 10% drop in overall freight.”
The found economic activity decreased 0.4 percentage point to 48.7% in October. This marked the eighth consecutive month manufacturing has contracted. Miller said the results are a sign there is still weak economic activity outside artificial intelligence, aerospace and pharmaceuticals.
“Chemicals is the second-biggest generator of trucking demand after food manufacturing,” Miller said. “Pharmaceuticals represent almost 40% of the value of shipments. It’s only 3% of the ton miles that gets hauled. ... Right now, we just have a manufacturing economy that is kind of blah. It’s still just kind of moving along.”
Miller noted the recent decline in vehicle production was due more to the aluminum plant fire in Oswego, N.Y., in September.
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“It wasn’t surprising that [tonnage was] down from September, and then down a little from the previous year,” said Jonathan Phares, assistant professor of supply chain management at Iowa State University. “We had been talking for months about the impact of tariffs and things like that, and we’re seeing prices increase.”
Despite these negative signs, the National Retail Federation is predicting that retail sales will grow between 3.7% and 4.2% year over year in November and December. That would bring total spending between $1.01 trillion and $1.02 trillion. The NRF report concluded that consumers are still fundamentally strong despite remaining cautious.
“It is interesting to see reports from the National Retail Federation and other retailers expecting some growth in sales during the season, even though we’re also getting word of softening consumer sentiment,” Phares said. “All of that taken together, it seems like maybe the sales growth that retailers are seeing already, as this holiday season is starting, as well as the sales growth projections, it’s probably linked to higher prices rather than more units being sold.”
Phares said these consumers have had to grapple with expensive goods and shifting tariff policies, potentially affecting demand, which has remained largely flat. He warned that volume dropping going into the holiday season could indicate that there is less volume overall.
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“[October was an] interesting month for sure,” Chief of Analytics Ken Adamo said. “We exited September strong. It was the end of a quarter; it was a busy final week of September. That strength continued into the first couple weeks of October.”
But Adamo noted the rest of the month included “a lot of [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] activity at weigh stations and warehouses, a lot of social media and other media posturing around non-domiciled [commercial driver licenses].”
Enforcement around CDLs in October could have weighed on trucking activity. (welcomia/Getty Images)
In September, the issued an interim final rule imposing strict requirements for noncitizens to obtain a CDL or commercial learner’s permit. That rule and the English-language proficiency requirements have affected trucking activity, something Werner Enterprises CEO Derek Leathers noted in his company’s third-quarter earnings call.
But on Nov. 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted an emergency stay blocking the FMCSA rule on non-domiciled CDLs.
“I think, as [October] wore on, that air came out of that balloon quite steadily,” Adamo said. “The courts have put a hold on enforcement of the non-domiciled CDL policy. So we’re essentially back. There’s a long way around the sun in October, but we’re pretty much back to where we started with no material change in rates year on year.”
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