Freight Cycle Turns Hard: Inland Constraints Are Repricing the System
Diesel records, carrier attrition, drayage exhaustion, and record import volumes are simultaneously tightening North American freight capacity.
Freight System Capacity · Emerging Pattern Candidate · convergence
Lead Signal
The Freight Cycle Has Turned — and the Cost Base Is Being Repriced Systemwide
After 42 months of freight recession, the Cass Freight Index is reporting what carriers have been pricing in for weeks: the cycle has turned. Truckload rates are up 11% year-over-year, shipments have finally moved positive, and the conditions driving this turn are not demand-led. They are supply-constrained — meaning the repricing will be stickier, and faster-moving, than the recovery playbooks built on prior cycles suggest.