Trucking companies hope that a pair of forthcoming reports will provide a jolt of good news for their ailing industry heading into 2017.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the analyses — one from ACT Research and FTR, the other from DAT Solutions — should gauge the impact of hundreds of idled big-rigs in recent months.
Three large trucking companies — Swift, Werner and Covenant — combined to take hundreds of semi-trucks off U.S. roads in an effort to alleviate excess capacity in the trucking sector.
The ACT and FTR report, due this week, will show the number of truck orders in October, which is a crucial month for companies planning for the following year.
The DAT report the following week will include a review of freight rates, which could indicate whether capacity became more closely aligned with demand.
Truck orders fell sharply in September compared to the same month in 2015, but some companies are increasingly optimistic.
Covenant, for one, reported smaller profit declines in the third quarter of the year compared to the second — a sign, the Journal noted, that the market could have bottomed out.