LTL carriers, rate bureaus announce GRIs

By Ray Bohman -- Logistics Management, 1/1/1998

Following a pattern that has become commonplace over the past several years, most individual general-commodity LTL carriers and regional rate bureaus waited until Jan. 1 to implement their major general rate increase (GRI) of the year. (For many years prior to that, their first GRI of the year didn't take effect until April 1, when the next annual phase of the carriers' Teamsters union contracts kicked in.) There were, however, some departures from the pattern this time around, including:

* Several individual carriers, including a few major ones like Yellow Freight System, and two regional rate bureaus jumped the gun and went ahead with GRIs earlier than usual--some by up to two and a half months ahead of the usual Jan. 1 effective date.

* Three of the "Big Four" LTL carriers made no public announcement of their increase. In this, they followed the lead of Roadway Express, which, for the first time in memory did not publicly announce the details of its rate hike, but instead said it would notify its customers by mail. On the other hand, most of the LTL carriers that went forward with GRIs earlier than Jan. 1--and some with first-of-the-year rate hikes, such as American Freightways--did give advance public notice of their plans.

* A number of individual carriers distributed their rate diskettes to customers much later than they usually do. Some clients didn't receive theirs until right around the first of the year.

As occurred last year, most individual LTL carrier and rate bureau GRIs fell within a very narrow range--with many clustering close to or at 5.5 percent. Most per-shipment minimum charges and absolute minimums concurrently went up by $2 per shipment.

Summary of 1998 General Rate Increases by Major LTL Carriers and Regional Rate Bureaus

Individual LTL Carriers: (Effective Jan. 1, 1998)

Carrier Minimum-Charge Increase LTL Rates TL Rates

Roadway Express $2 Averaging 5.4%

Consolidated Freightways N/A Averaging 5.5%

ABF Freight System 1.8% Averaging 5.3%

Con-Way Central

Con-Way Southern N/A Averaging 5.5%

Con-Way Western

American Freightways $2 Averaging 5.5%

Old Dominion Freight Line N/A Averaging 5.2%

Regional Rate Bureaus: (Effective Jan. 1, 1998)

EC-Mac Motor Carriers

Service Association $2 4.9% 4.9%

Rocky Mountain Motor

Tariff Bureau 5.5% 5.5% 5.5%

Southern Motor Carriers Rate Conf. All Territory Except Northeast-South

$2 5.5% 3.0%

Northeast-South

(N/A = not available) $2 8.0% 4.0%

Ray Bohman is a well-known consultant and author. Mr. Bohman is editor of several highly successful newsletters on transportation and is a consultant to a number of national trade associations. He is president of The Bohman Group, consultants and publishers in the freight-transportation field. His offices are located at 27 Bay Lane, Chatham, MA 02633. Phone: (508) 945-2272.