Booming economic activity results in more freight needing hauled. Freight volume refers to the amount of goods, import and export, moving through the transportation industry. Almost every physical product made or sold in the U.S. economy moves through the commercial vehicle (CV) market.
Why Is Freight Volume Important?
No matter the economic environment, having an understanding of market trends is extremely valuable for companies to be able to respond to challenges and opportunities.
Shippers own or supply the goods (freight) that carriers will transport, and brokers act as the middle man between them; thus, the amount of freight moving among these players will impact how they conduct their business. Businesses benefit from having accurate information related to freight volume so they can better plan for the road ahead.
An effective way to think about supply and demand in the truckload (TL) market is the concept of a pendulum. When demand grows faster than capacity and the supply of drivers or tractors is short, the pendulum swings to the fleets and freight rates rise. When supply growth outpaces demand growth, the pendulum swings to the shipper and freight rates fall. Trying to match long-term businesses with short-term fluctuations in freight demand is cyclical.
How is Freight Volume Measured?
For any company, the scope of internal data can be limiting and unfortunately, the cost of gathering broader market analysis can be prohibitive. As a solution, ACT Research gathers information on a confidential basis from a wide variety of TL carriers, especially the small and mid-size TL carriers that haul a major portion of freight in the North American market. The elements of information include:
- business volume trends,
- market price trends, and
- expectations for vehicle sales and purchases.
The ACT For-Hire Trucking Index surveys carriers to help paint a comprehensive picture of trends in transportation and CV markets.
Additionally, ACT Research partners with Cass Information Systems, Inc., the nation’s largest processor of freight billing, to gain insight on current market trends and the state of the shipping sector. ACT uses the Cass Freight Index®, which measures freight volumes and expenditures, and the Truckload Linehaul Index®, a pricing indicator, to forecast freight demand.
What is ACT saying right now about freight volume?
October 26, 2026 Update
Freight Volume Outlook: September 2026 Signals a Broader Recovery
Freight volume measures how much moves, but no single source counts every shipment in the economy. The type of activity and the observation period matter. The October Freight Forecast reports that for-hire demand is showing life in several pockets while higher energy and borrowing costs make the aggregate outlook more moderate. That is a more useful description than declaring a broad freight surge from one favorable comparison.
What the Latest Shipment Indicators Show
The Cass Freight Index provides a separate view of for-hire shipment activity. Its month and methodology should be checked against the ACT reporting period before making a direct comparison. In September, DAT spot truckload load postings were 31% above a year earlier in ACT's October Freight Forecast. Postings are offers of freight on that marketplace; they are not a census of all truckload shipments and cannot stand in for total freight volume.
For-Hire Volume Is Different from Total Freight Demand
DAT spot load postings describe offers of freight in a marketplace, not all truckload shipments. A stronger for-hire indicator can also reflect freight moving away from another network. Compare postings with actual customer shipments, tender acceptance and utilization before concluding that total freight demand accelerated.
Consumer and Industrial Freight Remain Uneven
Freight-producing activity varies across consumers, industrial customers and trade flows. Higher energy and borrowing costs can restrain some shipments while other markets improve. ACT’s October report describes pockets of stronger activity without treating them as an economy-wide surge.
Modal Growth Can Include Freight Redistribution
Other networks provide separate views. ACT discusses intermodal activity and LTL tonnage alongside truckload. A shift of a shipment from one mode or network to another can strengthen one indicator without creating new economy-wide freight. Heavier loads can also lift tonnage while a shipment count changes less. Readers should compare shipments, tonnage and marketplace postings according to what each actually measures.
What to Monitor Next
For a shipper, this distinction helps separate a true change in customer demand from a change in mode or routing. For a carrier or broker, it helps test whether stronger marketplace activity is appearing in booked loads, tender acceptance and utilization. ACT's Freight Forecast brings those measures together with capacity and rates to evaluate the market rather than treating a single volume series as definitive.
Freight Volume Forecasting
When forecasting the truckload and less-than-truckload markets, ACT Research utilizes two primary metrics to measure industry volumes (demand):
In short, both measure consumer demand that drives the shipping of goods by a carrier. In other words, measurements of the volume of freight hauled.
Cass Freight Index®- Shipments measures the number of freight shipments hauled within North America by Cass Information Systems. Cass processes more than $44 billion in freight transactions annually and is the ideal source for measuring shipper volumes.
ACT Freight Composite Index is a measure of the estimated total freight hauled by sector as developed by ACT Research.
These two demand metrics provide insights into the expected volumes of freight shipped over the next 6-36 months, providing a supply-demand balance when utilized with ACT's capacity (supply) metrics.
To see how freight volume is likely to change in the future, and for detailed analysis and forecasts for truckload, less-than-truckload, and intermodal, see ACT's freight & transportation forecast.