Transportation Outlook – May 2018
Thank you for your business and partnership with ADL to start 2018. First quarter was challenging for many of us in the transportation and logistics industry with the mandated ELD Logs and the tightening of capacity across the board. We are now heading into produce season in the south, and we continue to see the capacity challenges linger. Logistics Management reported what to expect for us to face this year as we continue into the second quarter of 2018:
“The over-arching theme is pretty straight forward. The steadily expanding global and domestic economies will be pushing rates up across every mode, while capacity will become even more constrained.”
Specifically in the Texas markets, we continue to see the economy thrive. The housing markets continue to explode as more and more companies move their offices and headquarters to Texas. This has opened up thousands of jobs, and created several moves to Texas internally with these companies. Amazon, State Farm, Toyota, Kubota, Hilti, McKesson, and NTT Data, have all moved their offices here to the Texas market within the past 2 years. With all of this building and expansion here locally the flatbed market in Texas has consistently been over booked with 200 loads to every truck on a daily basis since the first quarter of 2018, and continues to rise with daily load counts. Roofing companies and building supply companies continue to struggle with securing flat-bed carriers, and specialized equipment such as moffet forklift flat-bed providers for job site deliveries.
The positive spin on all of this for us in logistics and transportation is, the economy is strong, companies seem to be reporting good profit margins and growth during quarter one, and the outlook for the rest of 2018 is promising. More and more smaller carriers and shippers are adapting the new technology trends that are available to them in order to help them sustain and grow in this ever-changing industry. The government mandates have forced the trucking industry to accept the new technology challenges, and become more efficient with route planning and optimization.
As discussed in one of our previous newsletters, American Diamond Logistics has created some cutting edge tracking tools for the 3PL side, and has also created a new TMS system for both small trucking companies and smaller 3PL’s as they continue to grow and expand their businesses. New software development and increasing our technological advances is critical for ADL heading into the 3rd and 4th quarter. Ask your Sales Rep for new individual pallet tracking technology coming soon from ADL.