Cass Truckload Linehaul Index

A Measure of Market Fluctuations in Per-Mile Truckload Freight Costs

As the nation’s largest payer of freight bills, Cass manages more than $20 billion annually in freight spend, enabling Cass to compile meaningful logistics data that serves as an indicator of transportation industry trends. The Cass Truckload Linehaul Index™ is a measure of market fluctuations in U.S. domestic per-mile truckload pricing. 

January 2012

Truckload linehaul rates leveled off a bit during January. Up just slightly from December, however, they hit their highest point since the 2005 date that our Index data begins.

The Index registered a value of 109.4. On a year-over-year basis, the growth rate moderated from December: +8.0% vs. +8.6%, respectively, as comparisons become a bit more difficult. We believe this data reaffirms that capacity remains tight.

View data points from 2005-present.

Subscribe to receive the Index monthly.

Index Definition

The Cass Truckload Linehaul Index is an accurate, timely indicator of market fluctuations in per-mile truckload pricing.

The index isolates the linehaul component of full truckload costs from other components (e.g. fuel and accessorials), providing an accurate reflection of trends in baseline truckload prices.

Data within this unique index is derived from actual freight invoices paid on behalf of Cass’ clients, which totaled over $20 billion in 2010. The index uses January 2005 as its base month.

Cass partners with the securities analyst firm Avondale Partners LLC to publish this Index. View the independent Avondale report that explains how the index was created and the validation measures the data was subject to.

Other Transportation Indexes from Cass

Cass also furnishes the Cass Freight Index, which is a measure of freight industry volume by dollars and number of shipments.