Aug. 22 SONAR Observations: Departures are down, denials are up in Dallas

Below are highlights from Monday’s SONAR reports. To learn more about SONAR—the industry’s fastest freight forecasting platform—or to request a demo, Click here. Also, don’t forget to check latest update of SONAR, TRAC — the latest spot rate data in the industry.

Guardian market

Dallas

Outbound volumes from Dallas fell 1.7% since early August; at the same time, incoming volumes increased by 4.1%. Neighboring market Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a drop in volumes last week, but overall they remained at the same level as at the beginning of the month.

However, rejection rates in both markets started to rise last week. Dallas saw denials rise 90 basis points from this time last week to 5.1%, and Fort Worth followed suit, rising about 85 basis points at the same time to 4.3%.

Indianapolis

Outbound traffic to Indianapolis is up 6.8% year-to-date, while inbound traffic is up 4.5% over the same time period — respectable growth for the market. The increase in volumes is steadily reducing capacity, increasing by 130 bps since the beginning of the month to 7.3%.

An increase in rejection rates will increase spot market rates in favor of carriers leaving Indianapolis.

Seattle

Volumes out of Seattle are falling over the city like light rain and have just hit their lowest level since June. Since the beginning of the month, the index of the volume of outgoing tenders has decreased by 9.6%, and incoming volumes have also fallen by 3.2%. This has caused the Seattle Headhaul Index to drop 210% over the past 10 days.

Significant declines in both inbound and outbound volumes have sapped bandwidth, pushing the drop rate below 1% at 89bps, Seattle’s lowest ever.

NTI as a point of reference

The National Truckload Index is a daily look at how spot rates in specific lanes are holding up compared to the national average, giving carriers and brokers an idea of ​​which lanes to move to or avoid.

Lane to watch: Atlanta – Dallas

Atlanta rejection rates hit an all-time low after falling about 80 basis points since last week to 4.5%, and Dallas spot rates fell along with them. The average spot rate on that lane has fallen 16 cents since early August to $2.28 a mile. While this rate is 32 cents below the national average, TRAC’s confidence score is 5, which gives a lot of confidence that this is what carriers are actually offering.