Regional trucking to see greatest growth this year

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 1/1/2001

Regional carriers will drive growth in the less-than-truckload segment of the U.S. expedited transportation market this year, says the Colography Group, a market research firm. In its annual forecast, the Atlanta-based firm predicts that 2001 revenues for the overall expedited market will reach $91.1 billion, a 6.5-percent hike over 2000 revenues. The company also forecasts that more than 7.2 billion shipments will move via expedited service this year - an all-time record.

When analyzing the market, Colography Group breaks the U.S. expedited (time-definite) business into four segments: less-than-truckload (LTL), ground parcel, domestic air, and U.S. air exports. Ground-parcel movements will still account for the lion's share of the market - 52.0 percent of the total, or four billion shipments.

The second-largest segment, domestic air, will account for 44.0 percent, or about 3.2 billion shipments this year, the researchers say. Air exports constitute a mere 1.3 percent, or 90 million shipments. LTL is expected to achieve a 2.7 percent share, or about 190 million shipments.

Colography estimates that LTL traffic will grow 9.0 percent, compared with a growth rate of 4.2 percent for ground-parcel traffic this year. "The growth in LTL traffic - albeit off a relatively small shipment base - and the strong performance forecast for the ground-parcel sector reflect the importance of shorthaul, truck-based movements and the gains made by surface carriers to enhance the quality and reliability of their delivery strategies," says Colography Group's president, Ted Scherck. Scherck also says that two-thirds of all expedited U.S. shipments will travel less than 700 miles this year and that this trend toward shorter lengths of haul is driving the diversion of freight to regional LTL trucking services.