This sound is generated automatically. Let us know if you have any feedback.
Dive Summary:
- Volume increased in some key trucking lanes last week after a freighter collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge that claimed lives and collapsed the span, according to DAT Freight & Analytics.
- Following the March 26 incident, flatbed cargoes rose 57% week-on-week from Baltimore, DAT iQ principal analyst Dean Croke said. market update. For Baltimore to Chicago, loads were up 117%.
- “We saw some early market chaos last week after the tragic bridge collapse,” Croke said. “Things tended to stabilize by the end of the week. There was sufficient truck capacity available to meet the increasing freight volumes.”
Dive Insight:
As well as the increase in volume, some lanes saw some jumps in prices.
“There was a spike in line prices early last week in critical lanes as the market processed the impact of the bridge collapse,” Croke said.
From Baltimore to Chicago, the average spot rate jumped 25 cents to $2.03 a mile, according to DAT. For steel strip to Gary, Indiana, spot prices rose 23 cents a mile to $2.02 a mile.
But other routes were mixed and even saw the opposite of price growth. Linehaul rates in South Bend, Indiana were flat at $1.98 and rates fell 13 cents to $2.14 in Detroit, even as volumes picked up significantly, Croke said.
With sufficient truck capacity to meet the surge in Baltimore, linehaul Flatbed prices fell an average of 5 cents per mile across the market.
Baltimore is a large flat market, and port imports of agricultural machinery and construction equipment typically peak in March, per DAT.
Exports and imports of farm equipment and machinery dominate the Baltimore trade area compared to anywhere else in the country, processing more than $5.03 billion worth of goods in 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
It was also one of the top ports last year for construction equipment, just behind the Houston-Galveston and Savannah, Georgia, areas.
“While rerouting containerized imports should generally be possible, given that Baltimore is not a major container port compared to, say, New York-New Jersey, we will see challenges with rerouting this volume.” which includes roll-on, roll-off equipment, Jason Miller wroteprofessor of supply chain management at the University of Michigan.
In contrast, the city’s dry van market is not as large as other parts of the country.
Outbound dry truck rates from Baltimore fell 2 cents a mile to $1.33, excluding fuel, while loads moved were 12 percent higher weekly, DAT’s Croke said.