Economy Improving, TIA Members Told

DALLAS – In another encouraging sign for trucking, freight brokers and forwarders say they are seeing signs of an economic turnaround.

Comparing the economy to an elevator that has hit bottom, Stephen Sample, president of Tyme-It Transportation of Louisville, Ky., said Friday the latest indicators, which show a big jump in housing starts and a shrinking trade deficit, are working like a counterweight to lift the economy.

Sample is president of the board of directors of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, an Alexandria, Va.-based trade association that wrapped up its 24th annual convention and trade show here Saturday.

TIA Executive Director Robert Voltmann agreed that things are looking up. "The elevator is going up and it's going up fast," he said.

The turnaround can't come soon enough for many brokers who have been scrambling to replace business lost to competition and shipper bankruptcies over the past year.

According to Voltmann, hundreds of thousands of smaller shippers went out of business, leaving unpaid transportation bills and forcing brokers to dig into their own pockets to pay motor carriers for their services.

Scott Moscrip, president of The Internet Truckstop, a freight matching and Internet service provider in New Plymouth, Idaho, said in an interview with Transport Topics that the average time that loads are posted has dropped from 11-12 hours to about 10 hours, an indication that freight is more plentiful.

Freight hauling capacity remains plentiful, however, Moscrip said, reflected in the fact that carrier searches outnumber freight postings by a 10 to 1 margin.

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