After a nearly two-year cycle of surging freight volumes, two key drivers of growth for the freight cycle--goods consumption and inventory restocking--are faltering.
Combined with a major improvement in driver availability (27,300 new jobs added in the past two months), all signs continue to point to a change in the trajectory of rates in the coming months.
| May 2022 | Year-over-year change | 2-year stacked change | Month-to-month change | Month-to-month change (SA) | |
| Cass Freight Index - Shipments | 1.235 | -2.7% | 31.7% | 5.4% | 4.0% |
| Cass Freight Index - Expenditures | 4.287 | 27.5% | 91.1% | -4.9% | -5.9% |
| Cass Inferred Freight Rates | 3.471 | 31.0% | NA | -9.8% | -9.5% |
| Truckload Linehaul Index | 168.6 | 13.2% | 29.1% | 0.9% | -- |
The Cass Transportation Indexes accurately measure changes in North American freight activity and costs based on $37 billion in paid freight expenses for the Cass customer base of hundreds of large shippers.
