Keeping Up With Capacity: From Transformation to Transition

Research evidence excerpt

Keeping Up With Capacity: From Transformation to Transition

rders continue to be elevated (replacement or growth?) and private

New Orders 6/30/26 31,400 18.2% 231.8%

fleet counts begin to accelerate again, driver headcount has remained

Retail Sales 6/30/26 21,846 2.6% (10.7%)

Production Pressure Ratio 6/30/26 39.1% 10.6% 51.6% relatively stable (we’re hearing an awful lot about driver shortages…and

associated missed revenue opportunities). At this stage of the cycle,

Private Fleets the overall capacity response remains muted, potentially prolonging the

period of pricing upside. But this sector is notoriously volatile (thanks in

Metric Date Current 1M Chng Y/Y Chng large part to low barriers to entry), thus we’ll continue to track the high-

Total Private Fleets 6/26/26 954,047 1.0% 2.7% frequency data to measure when an eventual capacity response to

WMT Fleet Count 6/26/26 13,618 0.0% 7.0% strong pricing commences…even if the data sources continue to

HD Fleet Count 6/26/26 5,473 0.0% (3.6%) change.

DG Fleet Count 6/26/26 2,284 (0.7%) (5.3%) ◼ Goodbye (?) legacy FMCSA dataset: authority counts are

back to the long-term trendline. After more than two years of

Trucking Utilization tracking authorities using FMCSA’s legacy operating-authority

data, this report could mark our final summary of that series. In

Metric Date Current 1M Chng Y/Y Chng mid-May, the FMCSA replaced its legacy registration system with

FTR Utilization Index 5/31/26 98.3% 0.4% 5.0% Motus, and public authority data now flows through Motus-based

Average Weekly Hours 5/31/26 40.4 1.0% 1.0% feeds, which have a different structure (see next bullet). While one

of our industry sources recently suggested that the FMCSA could

Dry-Van Spot Rates still restore this legacy-style data, our latest read on the dataset