Spot market tightening

Truckload spot capacity tightened again in mid-April, even after freight volumes cooled, leaving flatbed especially hard to cover and pushing rates up unevenly. (dat.com) (bluebookservices.com) DAT said total load posts on DAT One fell 7% to 3.31 million in the week of April 12-18, while equipment posts fell 4% to 221,154. Flatbed equipment was roughly flat at 21,485 trucks, reefer equipment fell 5% to 38,844, and van equipment fell 4% to 160,825. (bluebookservices.com) The load-to-truck ratio — the count of posted loads for each posted truck — stayed elevated across equipment types. DAT’s April 13-19 Trendlines snapshot showed flatbed load-to-truck up 81.6% from March 2025, reefer up 145.7%, and van up 89.5%. (dat.com 1) (dat.com 2) Flatbed remains the tightest part of the market. DAT’s flatbed ratio was 73.07 for the week ending April 18, after readings of 80.97 on April 11 and 81.57 on March 28; Blue Book, citing DAT, put the week-of-April-12-18 flatbed ratio at 75.2 and said the national flatbed spot rate rose to $2.98 a mile. (dat.com) (bluebookservices.com) Reefer is tighter than the week-to-week rate move suggests. Blue Book, also citing DAT, said reefer load posts fell 10% last week to 498,788, but reefer equipment hit its lowest Week 16 level in 10 years, and reefer linehaul still ran 45 cents a mile above the same week last year at $2.35. (bluebookservices.com) The rate picture is not moving in one straight line. In the April 12-18 data, van spot rates slipped to $2.35 a mile and reefer to $2.72, while flatbed climbed 3 cents to $2.98; DAT’s month-to-date April averages were higher at $3.44 for van and $3.13 for flatbed because Trendlines includes fuel surcharges and tracks lanes of 250 miles or more. (bluebookservices.com) (dat.com) Fuel is still distorting the market. The U.S. Energy Information Administration put the national on-highway diesel average at $5.40 a gallon for the week of April 20, and DAT said a 25-cent drop from the prior week helped pull van rates lower even as capacity stayed tight. (eia.gov) (dat.com) (bluebookservices.com) Seasonal freight is adding pressure in refrigerated lanes. USDA’s Specialty Crops National Truck Rate Report for April 22 said every California region shifted to “Slight Shortage” for trucks after a four-week lull, a change DAT highlighted earlier this month as produce volumes began lifting reefer demand. (ams.usda.gov) (ajot.com) That leaves the spot market more selective than uniformly hot. DAT’s own definition says load-to-truck ratios are an early signal of rate changes, and April’s readings show carriers with the right trailer, lane history and service record are in a better position than carriers chasing every posted load. (dat.com 1) (dat.com 2)