The Good-News Trickle

This Editorial appears in the Feb. 22 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

The reasonably good news about the direction of the nation’s economy continues to reach our offices every week. And while the recovery is surely not as robust as any of us wants, it is unmistakably occurring.

On our front page this week is news that Class 8 truck sales exceeded year-ago levels in January for the first time in 13 months.

Now, the gain was paltry — 0.2% to be exact — but it was the first uptick since December 2008, and that matters. Analysts warned that we shouldn’t get too excited about the sales bump, but they all expect things to get better later in 2010, and most expect a return to something resembling “normal” late this year or in 2011.

Truck makers are expecting sales to dip again because the new models — which contain new systems necessary to meet stricter federal emissions standards — are notably more expensive than the ones they will replace.

At the same time, we carry news this week (click here for story) of an index only recently made available to us. This new index measures the pace of diesel purchases by truckers at truck stops around the country, and it shows freight growing at a 3.3% annual rate.

This index, produced by Ceridian Corp. and called the Pulse of Commerce, includes data back to 1999, but was only recently released for public consumption. It measures the use of fuel cards at certain truck stops, and its producers say its movements have closely tracked changes in the U.S. Industrial Production index.

Ceridian owns Comdata, which issues fuel cards and created the index in conjunction with the University of California, Los Angeles.

Also, Cass Information Systems’ freight index showed that spending on freight increased 6% during January, while freight volume was growing by 2%.

And if additional proof is necessary, we can turn to the words of Judy McReynolds, president of Arkansas Best Corp., who reported that tonnage at the company’s ABF Freight System was up for the first time in three years on a month-to-month basis in December, and that the growth continued in January.

Little by little, step by step, the economy is improving and the outlook for the nation’s truck fleets is getting better. And one day soon we are going to be able to use “good” and “freight levels” in the same sentence. Stay tuned.