THE DAILY

Monday, May 4, 2026

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The Daily

Schneider targets steepest one-way rate increases since 2021

The truckload bid cycle just got a clear marker. Schneider is heading into renewals planning on mid- to high-single-digit one-way contract increases, with double-digit hikes lined up for transactional shippers, citing the strongest pricing environment in five years.

On its first-quarter earnings call, the multimodal carrier (NYSE: SNDR) reported adjusted EPS of 12 cents, which was 2 cents above consensus, but 4 cents lower year over year. Consolidated revenue held at $1.4 billion. Truckload revenue rose 1% to $618 million excluding fuel, as a 1% drop in average trucks in service was more than offset by a 3% gain in revenue per truck per week. Productivity at the one-way fleet jumped 7.3% y/y, driven mostly by better utilization with pricing assisting at the margin.

CEO Mark Rourke ran his last earnings call before his July 1 transition to executive chairman. Jim Filter, executive vice president and president of transportation and logistics, takes the corner office. Schneider reiterated 2026 adjusted EPS guidance of 70 cents to $1, bracketing an 85-cent consensus, and held 2026 net capex guidance at $400 million to $450 million. The truckload operating ratio came in at 96.7%, 80 basis points worse y/y. Intermodal posted a 95.7% OR, 100 bps worse y/y, with revenue down 3% to $254 million on a shorter length of haul.

Schneider’s pricing posture matters because every one-way carrier reads the same SONAR data. Outbound Tender Rejection Index readings show a tightened truckload market, and the Van Contract Rate Per Mile Index keeps grinding higher. Dedicated customers are growing truck counts and asking for high tender acceptance (Schneider sold dedicated service on 150 trucks in Q1), the surest tell that capacity is no longer something shippers can take for granted.

So What? Schneider’s mid-to-high-single-digit target is the floor for one-way bid season, not the ceiling. Transactional accounts that bought aggressively during the 2022-2024 downturn are looking at double-digit increases. Shippers benchmarking against 2024 contracts will feel this before they see it coming. Lock in capacity with high-acceptance carriers now.

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Top Stories

LTL pricing posts sharpest gains since Yellow’s collapse

The LTL monthly cost per hundredweight index just printed its strongest reading since Yellow exited the market in summer 2023. New bids and general rate increases are clearing roughly 12.5% above last year and 29% above May 2021, according to SONAR. The truckload contract index VCRPM1 has been climbing since November, and LTL typically tracks truckload by three to six months. After a 1.7% y/y decline in January and a 1.2% drop in February, March posted a 7% y/y jump. Average weight per shipment has climbed about 11% year to date as shippers break full truckloads into LTL for guaranteed capacity.

So What? LTL contracts are stickier than truckload, so today’s increases reset the floor for the next 12 to 18 months. Long-distance LTL service is up 5.4% y/y on the Producer Price Index. The pricing window is closing fast.

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Union Pacific would walk away from NS deal if STB orders line sales

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern’s revised merger application made the railroad’s posture clear: UP will scrap the $85 billion deal if regulators force widespread trackage rights or line divestitures. The lone exception is the duplicative Kansas City-St. Louis route. The combined railroad would span more than 52,000 miles across 43 states. UP would owe NS a $2.5 billion breakup fee if it walks. The merger agreement allows UP to absorb minor reciprocal switching obligations or small divestitures up to a $750 million threshold; anything above that triggers a review. The application identifies five 2-to-1 customer locations and four 3-to-2 sites, all in Illinois. The hard end date is Jan. 28, 2028.

So What? UP is willing to fight regulators harder than the market assumed. Shippers and short lines that would lose options need to file with the STB now. The Illinois 2-to-1 and 3-to-2 sites will be the first battlegrounds.

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Loop launches Logistics Data Platform after $95M Series C

San Francisco-based Loop unveiled its Logistics Data Platform Monday, built on a $95 million Series C led by Valor Equity Partners and the Valor Atreides AI Fund with participation from 8VC, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners and Tao Capital Partners. At the platform’s core sits DUX 2.0, a domain-specific language model that extracts and normalizes data from PDFs, emails, spreadsheets and ERP systems, capturing more than 200 data points per shipment. The Exception Agent automates dispute initiation and invoice resolution. Loop Intelligence layers natural-language network optimization on top. Customers include Outset Medical, Clemens Food Group, Olipop, Kendra Scott and Dot Foods. "Automation and AI are only as powerful as the data foundation they operate on," said co-founder and CEO Matt McKinney.

So What? McKinney is betting that off-the-shelf LLMs hallucinate too much for freight contexts. If DUX 2.0 delivers clean exception handling at enterprise scale, every TMS and ERP vendor reading earnings tonight has a new competitive question to answer.

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Sponsored By Old Dominion Freight Line

How accurate shipping data is transforming LTL outcomes With NMFTA’s density-based classification now governing 70% to 80% of LTL freight, the margin for error on shipment data is thinner than ever. Shippers still relying on outdated measurement practices are seeing as many as one in four shipments come back with re-rates. Old Dominion Freight Line shows how shippers from Douglas Dynamics to ULINE turned data accuracy into tighter cost forecasting, faster transit times and stronger carrier partnerships. Read the full story →

FMCSA tightens enforcement one year after Trump’s safety order

April 28 marked the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s executive order on commercial driver safety, and FMCSA’s enforcement record over the past 12 months is the most aggressive in agency history. English language proficiency violations went back into the out-of-service criteria on June 25, 2025. A nationwide audit found more than 30 states improperly issuing non-domiciled CDLs, with over 25% in California alone, and 28 states landed under special enforcement orders. The Sept. 29 emergency interim final rule closed the Employment Authorization Document pathway; the final rule took effect March 16, 2026. More than 7,000 entry-level driver training providers have been removed from the ELDT registry. Over 80 ELDs have been pulled from the approved list. Administrator Derek Barrs has joined roadside inspections personally.

So What? The structural cost floor for compliant carriers is rising as the cheapest non-compliant capacity exits the market. Underwriters and 3PL compliance teams should expect tighter MC authority approvals and longer onboarding for new carriers. Cheap operating capacity at suspect carriers is no longer a viable line item.

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Sponsored Insight

From the Research Desk

What We’re Watching

▸ Whether other one-way carriers match Schneider’s bid-season targets. Mid-to-high-single-digit one-way and double-digit transactional is the new floor. The next round of Q1 earnings calls from major TL carriers will tell shippers how widely that posture is shared. Read the prepared remarks, not the press releases.

▸ Illinois 2-to-1 and 3-to-2 shipper filings with the STB. Nine customer locations identified in the UP-NS application sit in Illinois. Comments from those shippers and the affected short lines will shape the conditions package the board ultimately considers — and whether UP triggers its $750 million walkaway clause.

▸ Carrier onboarding timelines after the EAD rule. The non-domiciled CDL final rule took effect March 16. Underwriters and 3PL compliance teams are already reporting longer MC authority approvals. Watch for downstream impacts on small-fleet capacity over the next 60 days.

That’s your Daily for today. See you tomorrow.

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