The American Trucking Association (ATA) announced Tuesday that its seasonally adjusted (SA) for-hire truck tonnage index was up 2.2 percent in December after slipping a revised 0.6 percent in November. The monthly increase puts the SA index at 111.6 in December-the highest level since September 2008. In November, the SA index was 109.2.
For all of 2010, tonnage was up 5.7 percent over 2009, and December 2010's 4.2 year-over-year increase was 0.9 percent higher than November 2010's year-over-year increase of 3.3 percent.
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello commented that he expects the "truck freight tonnage to grow modestly during the first half of 2011 and accelerate in the latter half of the year into 2012."