Trucking activity dips 1% in July
Key Highlights
- Trucking activity in the US dipped by 1% in July after a June increase, indicating market volatility.
- The industry’s recovery is mainly driven by capacity reductions, not a surge in freight demand.
- Tonnage levels are up 1.4% year-to-date compared to 2025, showing modest growth.
United States trucking activity dipped by 1% in July after rising 1.5% in June, according to the American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index.
“Tonnage levels have been choppy recently, and this trend was reflected in July’s decline,” Bob Costello, ATA’s chief economist, said in a news release. “Aside from a couple pockets of strength, including the boom in data center construction for AI, freight has been lackluster.
“It is also true that the industry is seeing a recovery, but that is nearly all due to excess capacity leaving the market.”
In July, the index equaled 113.5, down from 114.7 in June, ATA reported. The index, which is based on 2015 as 100, decreased 0.5% from the same month in 2025, which was worse than June’s 1.2% gain. Year-to-date, compared with the same period in 2025, tonnage is up 1.4% due to robust year-over-year increases from February through April.
The not seasonally adjusted index, which calculates raw changes in tonnage hauled, equaled 117 in July, 0.9% below June’s reading of 118.
Trucking serves as a barometer of the U.S. economy, representing 72.7% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled 11.27 billion tons of freight in 2024. Motor carriers collected $906 billion, or 76.9% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.
Both indices are dominated by contract freight, as opposed to traditional spot market freight. The tonnage index is calculated on surveys from its membership and has been doing so since the 1970s.