American Trucking Associations announced it has partnered with DAT, the operator of the industry's oldest and largest spot marketplace, to include data about the spot market for trucking services in ATA's monthly Trucking Activity Report, ATA American Trucking Trends, and other information services ATA provides to its members and the public.
"We've always prided ourselves in being a leader in information about the state of the trucking industry," ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said prior to the start of ATA's annual Management Conference & Exhibition. "By adding DAT's data on the spot market for freight, we'll be able to provide an even more complete picture of the country's dominant industry for goods movement."
"Since 1996, we have tracked supply and demand on the spot marketplace. Our-real-time data on contract and spot freight rates are based on $24 billion of actual transactions," said David Schrader, DAT senior vice president. "Our relationship with ATA reflects our evolution as a business supplying actionable information to the trucking industry."
As part of the relationship, DAT provides ATA with its U.S. Spot Market Freight Index, an early indicator of truckload freight trends in general based on exception freight not under long-term contract to carriers, based on an average of 90 million loads and trucks annually for vans, refrigerated trailers and flatbeds. In addition, DAT provides ATA its Spot Market Truckload Rate Index, based on $13 billion of contract transactions and $11 billion of spot transactions involving carriers, shippers, and brokers of vans, refrigerated and flatbed freight.
Since March of 2013, ATA has used this data in assembling its monthly Trucking Activity Report and in compiling the annual ATA American Trucking Trends. Both TRAC and Trends can be purchased through ATA Business Solutions.
