January transportation metrics again signaled a tightening market, according to a monthly survey of supply chain managers. The Logistics Managers’ Index—a diffusion index in which a reading above 50 indicates expansion while one below 50 signals contraction—displayed a 47.1 reading for transportation capacity in January. That was a second straight month of contraction, albeit 10.2 percentage points slower than in December. (December’s 36.9 reading marked the was fastest drawdown in transportation capacity since October 2021.) Large companies (1,000 employees or more) returned a 41.5 reading for capacity while small companies reported modest expansion at 52.5. Downstream retailers reported no change (50) in capacity while upstream manufacturers and wholesalers saw contraction (45.9). Public truckload carriers and 3PLs reporting fourth-quarter results have consistently pointed to increased regulatory pressure on the driver pool—English-language proficiency requirements, non-domiciled CDL restrictions, and ELD and driver school crackdowns—as a factor forcing truck capacity out of the market. Severe winter weather has also been a catalyst behind the market tightening. window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot(‘/21776187881/FW-Responsive-Main_Content-Slot1’, [[300, 100], [320, 50], [728, 90], [468, 60]], ‘div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0’).defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0’); }); The firming supply-demand dynamic has pushed tender rejections and truckload spot rates to multiyear highs. Chart: SONAR: Outbound Tender Rejection Index (OTRI.USA) for 2026 (blue shaded area), 2025 (yellow line), 2024 (green line) and 2023 (pink line). A proxy for truck capacity, the tender rejection index shows the number of loads being rejected by carriers. Current tender rejections show a tightening truckload market. To…
