Data Reveals Supply-Driven Cycle in Trucking

The U.S. truckload market is running on supply trends more than demand, according to the latest data from FreightWaves SONAR. The Accepted Truckload Volume Index, which tracks how much freight carriers accept under existing rate agreements, averaged roughly 9,800 last week. The Truckload Rejection Index, measuring the percentage of tendered loads carriers turn down, hovered near 13.5%. Both figures sit below their 12-month peaks, yet the relationship between them tells a specific story.

What the Two Indexes Reveal

The Accepted Volume Index works best as a demand proxy when rejection rates stay relatively low. When the market tightens and rejections climb, accepted volumes show how much freight carriers can actually move with the equipment they have. A rise in ASTVI paired with falling rejections signals capacity growth or better market efficiency. That pattern has shown up periodically over the past several years.

Capacity erosion, by contrast, shows up differently. When accepted tenders flatten while rejections rise, that points to trucks getting harder to find. October of both 2024 and 2025 displayed that signature. The opposite scenario — both metrics falling together — reflects pure demand weakness. That played out this past July.

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Why Supply-Driven Cycles Take Longer

The recent demand pullback brought rejection rates down, but that wasn’t a sign of more trucks hitting the road. Shippers have increasingly shifted freight to intermodal because it costs less than truck transportation. Demand shifts move fast. Supply adjustments do not.

It took more than three years for the market to work off the oversupply that built up after the COVID surge. That slow correction shows how entrenched supply-side imbalances become. The current cycle appears to be following a similar — though not identical — pattern.

Recent volume levels sit close to where they were in 2019. That’s lower than most of the past four years, with the exception of last October and November. Rejection rates ran below 5% for most of 2019 and stayed under 6% last fall. The demand picture was roughly similar, but the market was considerably tighter.

Carrier Balance Sheets Remain Strained

Q2 2026 earnings reports show no evidence of fleet expansion. Most carriers posted annual declines in active units. Class 8 truck orders have climbed this year, but that comparison against 2025 — one of the weakest ordering years on record — distorts the picture. Industry consultants at ACT and FTR both point to fleet replacement as the primary driver, not growth.

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Carriers are working through one of the longest and most difficult freight downturns since the 2009 recession. Cash reserves stayed thin and debt levels stayed raised throughout the recovery attempt. That limits the ability to quickly add capacity even if conditions improve.

Risks in the near term lean toward further tightening rather than rapid softening. Potential demand growth, rail service disruptions, intermodal rate increases, and ongoing government pressure on carrier operations could all reduce available truck capacity. The goods economy would need to deteriorate significantly for that balance to shift.

If economic conditions hold, the current supply-driven cycle has room to continue. The goods economy would need to deteriorate significantly for that balance to shift. Most carriers reported annual declines in active units. That structural constraint — limited fleet growth, high debt, low cash — keeps the supply side of the equation tight even without a surge in freight volumes.