If you keep up with trucking, read what OOIDA and ATA put out ( www.truckline.org ) then you're probably like me and a little concerned about freight tonnage. Not since 2009 has there been so little increase in freight index shipping tonnage for this time of year, that has the industry a little worried.
You have to wonder if we're not the victim of our own success.
Consider for a moment by stepping back WHAT we haul as compared to what was hauled 10 or 20 years ago as it relates to the type, size and weight of the product.
Example: TV's - just 5 years ago a big screened TV was a massive, heavy, block that took up a sizable about of room and 2 guys to move it. Today, TV's are thinner, lighter and you can pack more into a single shipper where you used to need 2 or 3.
Freight is measure in tonnage, not pieces moved, and tonnage is also looked at to indicate the health of manufacturing and production. But the only thing getting heavier that's manufactured in America today is the population, everything else is getting thinner and lighter.
Like all things there will be a correction in shipping cost to reflect the change in demand, shipping cost will go up as the number of trucks and drivers go down. The industry is going to have to stop playing the game the way their fathers did, they're going to need to look at efficiencies and quality of the shipment and not to the number of trucks in the lot.
Just my opinion.
Paul Still
You have to wonder if we're not the victim of our own success.
Consider for a moment by stepping back WHAT we haul as compared to what was hauled 10 or 20 years ago as it relates to the type, size and weight of the product.
Example: TV's - just 5 years ago a big screened TV was a massive, heavy, block that took up a sizable about of room and 2 guys to move it. Today, TV's are thinner, lighter and you can pack more into a single shipper where you used to need 2 or 3.
Freight is measure in tonnage, not pieces moved, and tonnage is also looked at to indicate the health of manufacturing and production. But the only thing getting heavier that's manufactured in America today is the population, everything else is getting thinner and lighter.
Like all things there will be a correction in shipping cost to reflect the change in demand, shipping cost will go up as the number of trucks and drivers go down. The industry is going to have to stop playing the game the way their fathers did, they're going to need to look at efficiencies and quality of the shipment and not to the number of trucks in the lot.
Just my opinion.
Paul Still
