Sluggish North American freight volumes in recent months may not turnaround right away, but a new capacity crunch phase next year could swing leverage back in carriers\u2019 favour, according to a panel of freight market analysts.<\/p>\n
The expected shortage in 2017 is expected to be driven in large measure by the mandated adoption of electronic logging devices (ELDs), reports Fleet Owner<\/em>. The market is already seeing some signs of this now, according to John Larkin, managing director and head of transportation capital markets research at Stifel Financial Corp.<\/p>\n \u201cSome shippers are stepping up as they ask carriers to begin installing ELDs now as [they] have decided that it is too risky to wait until the middle of December 2017 to see if [their] core carriers have sufficiently progressed in installing ELDs,\u201d Larkin said during a presentation the 2016 Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) annual meeting in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n \u201cMost shippers have little interest in using non-compliant carriers. We mention this fairly widespread trend to suggest that the impact associated with ELD implementation may be felt a little earlier than some had projected.\u201d<\/p>\n Larkin added that the driver shortage continues to be a \u201chuge\u201d industry problem, with the industry on pace to be short an estimated 250,000 drivers six years from now. He also noted that the \u201cquality of recruits\u201d is declining as well, meaning many carriers will be further restricted in efforts to add capacity to their networks.<\/p>\n \u201cA long-term truckload capacity crunch should kick in around 2017 and 2018 if the economy continues to grow slowly,\u201d Fleet Owner quoted Larkin as saying. \u201cIt would not take much incremental growth in retail [freight demand] to put us right back into the capacity constraints we experienced in 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet he emphasized that \u201cbloated inventories, sluggish consumption, and contracting industrial activity\u201d that started to occur in mid-2015 through the first part of this year got exacerbated by shipper attempts to cut freight costs; a move Larkin likened to \u201cNeanderthal practices.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe 20% of the shippers out there went out to re-bid freight; and they have no idea how disruptive that is to carrier networks,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is still out belief that greater shipper\/carrier collaboration is an untapped resource\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sluggish North American freight volumes in recent months may not turnaround right away, but a new capacity crunch phase next year could swing leverage back in carriers\u2019 favour, according 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