Trucking Slowly Climbs Toward the Up Cycle in 2025

Jan 03, 2025 at 01:34 PM CST
The trucking industry is expected to slowly improve next year even as market headwinds and uncertainty leave many unknowns heading into 2025. The freight market has struggled for nearly two years to gain traction after it collapsed into an unusually prolonged down cycle, but that only came after an exceptionally good up cycle brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Now experts are cautiously optimistic the resulting mismatch between freight demand and capacity will be further corrected over the coming year. “You have a freight environment that is very slightly improved, and you have capacity that is very slightly lower — that has produced the makings of a recovery next year,” said Avery Vise, vice president of trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence. “Utilization has steadily improved, but at this point is basically running at about an average level, and that isn’t really going to produce much of an inflection in rates. But we do expect to see that.”

Jan 03, 2025 at 01:34 PM CST

The trucking industry is expected to slowly improve next year even as market headwinds and uncertainty leave many unknowns heading into 2025.

The freight market has struggled for nearly two years to gain traction after it collapsed into an unusually prolonged down cycle, but that only came after an exceptionally good up cycle brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Now experts are cautiously optimistic the resulting mismatch between freight demand and capacity will be further corrected over the coming year.

“You have a freight environment that is very slightly improved, and you have capacity that is very slightly lower — that has produced the makings of a recovery next year,” said Avery Vise, vice president of trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence. “Utilization has steadily improved, but at this point is basically running at about an average level, and that isn’t really going to produce much of an inflection in rates. But we do expect to see that.”