Freight & Transportation Forecast
Forward-looking rate, volume, and capacity intelligence for freight planning decisions.
ACT’s Freight & Transportation Forecast helps shippers, brokers, carriers, intermodal providers, and finance teams understand where freight rates, volumes, and capacity conditions may be headed across truckload, LTL, and intermodal markets. Built on freight market data, commercial vehicle intelligence, forecasting methodology, and analyst interpretation, the forecast helps customers plan budgets, pricing, procurement, capacity, and market strategy with greater confidence.
Get Freight Forecast IntelligenceFreight rate and volume forecasting for a market that moves quickly
Freight markets move quickly. Your planning assumptions need a clearer view of what may come next.
Freight markets are shaped by forces that can shift quickly: consumer behavior, industrial activity, inventory cycles, supply-chain disruption, private fleet capacity, regulatory change, and global trade dynamics.
These forces do not just affect freight volumes. They influence rates, capacity availability, carrier behavior, service conditions, equipment demand, and cost structure.
When headlines, internal models, and market anecdotes point in different directions, ACT provides an independent, forward-looking view of freight conditions. The Freight & Transportation Forecast helps customers understand rate and volume expectations across truckload, LTL, and intermodal markets — and connect those expectations to planning decisions.
Freight markets are complex, volatile, and interconnected
Freight participants face recurring planning challenges across every phase of the cycle. ACT helps connect these challenges to a clearer market view.
1. Capacity Can Shift Quickly
Private fleets expand and contract. Carrier utilization changes. Equipment orders fluctuate. Small-fleet exits, driver availability, regulatory timing, and used equipment flows can all reshape supply.
ACT tracks these shifts through:
- Capacity indicators
- Class 8 population modeling
- Carrier survey data
- Equipment build and sales trends
- Used equipment market signals
2. Rates Don’t Move Uniformly Across Modes
Truckload spot and contract rates do not always move together. LTL pricing follows different cost and service dynamics. Intermodal rates and volumes can respond to separate capacity, service, and rail-market conditions.
ACT helps customers understand how rate movements differ by mode, why those differences matter, and how modal shifts may affect budgets, pricing, procurement, and network decisions.
3. Demand Patterns Are Multilayered
Consumer spending, industrial production, housing, imports, exports, retail inventories, and business investment all influence freight activity. When one factor changes, others may offset or amplify the impact.
ACT integrates macroeconomic indicators, industry data, and mode-specific demand drivers into a connected freight outlook.
4. Internal Plans Need External Validation
Transportation budgets, contract negotiations, pricing strategies, equipment planning, network decisions, and investment models increasingly require independent support.
ACT provides the external market perspective teams use to validate assumptions, communicate expectations, and make more confident freight planning decisions.
How have ACT Research’s freight forecasts performed?
ACT Research’s 2024 forecasts for the Cass Truckload Linehaul Index® were 98.8% accurate on average over the past 18 months, and were spot on from 13 months out.
What the Freight & Transportation Forecast covers
A monthly, multi-modal view of transportation rates, volumes, capacity, and freight-market direction.
Updated monthly, the forecast brings together key freight, economic, capacity, and equipment-market signals across truckload, LTL, intermodal, and broader transportation markets.
✔ Truckload (Spot & Contract)
Forecasts for:
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Dry van
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Reefer
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Flatbed
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Aggregate TL rates
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Mode-specific demand signals
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Load-to-truck ratios
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Carrier operating and financial metrics
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Class 8 order, production, and fleet capacity trends
✔ Less-Than-Truckload (LTL)
Forecasts for:
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Pricing trends
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Tonnage and shipment characteristics
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Weight-per-shipment dynamics
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Operating ratios and financial health
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LTL vs. TL substitution trends
✔ Intermodal & Rail
Forecasts for:
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Intermodal volumes and rates
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Rail service metrics
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Domestic vs. international IM dynamics
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Port activity & ocean container flows
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Intermodal PPI expectations
✔ Freight Volume Outlook (Cross-Modal)
Including:
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Cass Freight Index® (shipments & inferred rates)
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TL vs. LTL volume divergences
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Mode conversion
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Leading indicators for freight cycles
✔ North American Economic Fundamentals
A dedicated macro section covering the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, including:
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Consumer & industrial demand
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Inflation, employment, and production trends
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Housing, imports, and other freight-linked sectors
✔ Scenario Analysis & Risk Modeling
The forecast quantifies how different outcomes related to:
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Policy changes
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Regulatory shifts
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Capital investment cycles
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Economic performance
affect freight demand, rates, and capacity.
The forecast helps customers evaluate how different outcomes related to policy changes, regulatory shifts, capital investment cycles, and economic performance may affect freight demand, rates, and capacity.
This gives planning teams a clearer range of possible outcomes, rather than a single unsupported assumption.
ACT Research completely transformed our freight forecasting process. The forward-looking LTL and spot-versus-contract insights have become foundational to how we plan and budget. Their reports are simple, powerful, and credible—so much so that when I’m challenged on my forecasts, I just point to ACT.
Steven Judge
Director of Ground Freight, 3PL & Small Pack Procurement @ Newell Brands
What You Get Each Month
A structured freight outlook designed to support planning, budgeting, pricing, and market analysis.
- Executive Summary
A concise narrative overview of market conditions across truckload, LTL, intermodal, and macroeconomic forces. -
Forecast Tables
Multi-year rate and volume outlooks across modes, including DAT truckload spot and contract rate outlooks, LTL tonnage and price forecasts, intermodal PPI and revenue-per-load forecasts, and capacity modeling tables. -
Freight Expectations Section
A connected view explaining why the forecast is moving the way it is, including macroeconomic, modal, pricing, and capacity drivers. -
Mode-Specific Deep Dives
Dedicated sections for truckload, LTL, and intermodal, including charts, heatmaps, survey results, and comparative analysis. -
Economic Context
Economic indicators that affect freight across geographies. -
Appendices
Supporting detail on truckload cycle analysis, population modeling, capacity and rate inputs, and additional modal forecast tables. -
Charts & Dashboards
Clear, visual charts that help teams compare conditions across modes, cycles, and planning periods.
Assuring rail equipment capacity for our intermodal stakeholders is imperative at TTX Company. Meeting this goal requires accurate freight demand forecasting which, in turn, necessitates an understanding of market conditions and issues. ACT Research’s monthly Freight Forecast complements our internal research and analysis by providing keen insight on demand drivers, as well as emerging and evolving trends. The report’s content is well-written, and the information provided is organized and easy to access and interpret.
Frank Adcock
AVP Marketing, TTX Company
How have ACT Research’s freight forecasts performed?
For 2024, ACT’s forecasts for the shipments component of the Cass Freight Index were 95.0% accurate on average for the 18-month forecast period.
Freight intelligence backed by data, partnerships, and analyst interpretation
ACT’s Freight & Transportation Forecast combines partner data, ACT methodology, and analyst interpretation to help customers understand freight market direction.
ACT’s partnerships with DAT Freight & Analytics and Cass Information Systems provide additional visibility into truckload rates, freight volumes, equipment postings, and market activity. ACT combines those signals with its freight-weighted economic analysis, Class 8 tractor supply modeling, carrier survey data, and analyst perspective to create a forward-looking freight market view.
Whether your team is a shipper, broker, carrier, intermodal provider, railroad, investor, or finance organization, ACT helps connect freight market signals to the planning decisions you need to make.
Who uses this forecast — and how it supports planning
Different teams use ACT’s Freight & Transportation Forecast in different ways, but all rely on it to understand rate direction, volume trends, capacity conditions, and freight-cycle timing.
Shippers
- Transportation budget planning
- Contract strategy and negotiation support
- Modal optimization across truckload, LTL, and intermodal
- Inventory and network planning
- Procurement timing and rate expectations
Carriers (TL & LTL)
- Capacity planning and pricing strategy
- Fleet investment and replacement timing
- Market positioning and rate forecasting
- Profitability and operating scenario analysis
- Customer and lane strategy
Intermodal Providers & Railroads
- Domestic and international intermodal planning
- Equipment allocation and network planning
- Fuel surcharge alignment
- Cross-modal competitive benchmarking
- Volume and rate expectation planning
3PLs & Brokers
- Margin management
- Pricing strategy
- Customer advisory and procurement support
- Capacity strategy
- Spot and contract rate planning
Financial Institutions
- Credit modeling
- Exposure assessment
- Transportation-sector forecasting
- Investment analysis
- Freight-cycle risk monitoring
Related freight market resources
Explore related ACT resources to track current freight conditions, market indicators, and analyst perspective.
Need help understanding freight rate and volume direction?
ACT can help you determine whether the Freight & Transportation Forecast is the right fit for your planning needs. Use ACT’s forward-looking freight intelligence to support transportation budgets, pricing strategy, procurement, capacity planning, and market analysis.