Gains continue for national truck tonnage index

Freight tonnage hauled by American trucking companies during the first two months of 2011 is up 5.9%, despite a 2.9% dip in February’s Truck Tonnage Index.

The American Trucking Associations’ For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index decreased 2.9% in February after increasing a revised 3.5% in January 2011. In January, the index equaled 116.6. During December 2010 and January 2011, the tonnage index jumped a total of 6.1%.

Compared with February 2010, tonnage climbed 4.2%, although this was smaller than January’s 7.6% year-over-year increase. Through the first two months of the year, tonnage is up 5.9% compared with the same two months last year.

For all of 2010, tonnage was up 5.7% compared with 2009. In 2009, the index plunged 8.7%.

Continued relative gains in the closely watched trucking sector report are good news for Fort Smith-based Arkansas Best Corp. and Van Buren-based USA Truck Inc. The two trucking companies that employ hundreds in the Fort Smith region and thousands nationwide have struggled financially during a freight recession that began in late 2006.

Arkansas Best, which employs about 9,500 nationwide, posted a 2010 net loss of $32.421 million, an improvement compared to a $127.522 million net loss in 2009. The 2009 income loss included a non-cash accounting charge of $64 million for the impairment of goodwill. ABF Freight System is the largest subsidiary of Arkansas Best, and is one of the largest less-than-truckload carriers in the U.S.

Total revenue in 2010 was $1.657 billion, a 12.55% gain over 2009 revenue of $1.472 billion, but still less than the $1.833 billion total revenue in 2008.

USA Truck reported net income losses in 2010 and 2009 totaling more than $10 million. The long-haul carrier reported Jan. 27 a 2010 net income loss of $3.308 million, an improvement compared to a 2009 net income loss of $7.177 million and a 2008 net income of $3.14 million.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said winter storms, not economic factors, in February probably reduced the index. He also said anecdotal reports from trucking companies are “very encouraging.”

“Tonnage is not going to increase every month and in general I’m very pleased with freight volumes early this year,” Costello noted in the ATA statement. “I’m hearing a significant amount of positive news from fleets and that the largest concern continues to be the price of diesel fuel, not freight levels.”

According to the ATA, trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy, representing nearly 68% of tonnage carried in 2008 by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled 8.8 billion tons of freight in 2009. Motor carriers collected $544.4 billion, or 81.9% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.

The trucking sector is important to the Arkansas economy. Arkansas and Nebraska are tops in the country in in terms of percentage of total state employment being in the trucking sector, according to the ATA trends. In Arkansas, 3.7% of all people employed in the private sector worked for a trucking company, with 3.6% for Nebraska. California and Texas have the most people working in the trucking industry in terms of total numbers.