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This week’s top stories in trucking

Routing Guides Crumble: Structural Supply Shift Changes the Game

Routing guides set early in the 2026 bid season are crumbling at an accelerated pace. Surging tender rejections and mini-bid activity are forcing shippers to rebid significant portions of their freight.

Heightened regulatory enforcement since last fall has purged noncompliant drivers while cost and compliance hurdles limit new capacity. This creates a structural supply contraction unlike past cycles. “It is different this time,” said Spencer Frazier, head of sales and marketing at J.B. Hunt Transport Services. “The ability for our industry to respond to that in the old way is just not going to be there.”

Carriers report the highest contract renewal levels since 2021 and are positioning for sustained rate gains. Shippers face more frequent procurement resets and firmer long-term pricing.

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Volatility Becomes Supply Chain’s New Operating System

The 2026 State of Logistics Report states that volatility is now the permanent operating environment. The long era of lean, lowest-cost, just-in-time global optimization has ended.

The report identifies five structural forces that require networks built for redundancy, optionality, geographic diversification and resilience: asymmetrical growth, tightening financial conditions, geoeconomic realignment, labor constraints and energy volatility.

“Last year’s supply chain looks different than today’s supply chain,” the report states. Geopolitics must now factor into network design. Artificial intelligence is advancing from dashboards to automated exception management and dynamic responses. Rail intermodal gains favor amid driver and asset pressures.

Leaders must build for permanent uncertainty rather than wait for normalization. The safest network is the one that survives disruption.

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Driver Pay Hikes Signal Early Truckload Recovery

Some carriers are raising driver pay and improving home time as truckload fundamentals turn positive in a supply-led upswing.

GP Transco increased company driver pay by 5 cents per mile, lifting the top scale to 72 cents per mile with incentives that can push first-year earnings near $100,000. The carrier also improved home time, offering 48-hour weekend resets after two weeks out. Hirschbach plans a total 10-cent-per-mile increase for its over-the-road company and lease drivers in coming months, with adjustments in other operations.

“As the freight market continues to move in the right direction, we are excited to pass that momentum on to our drivers,” said Amos Savickas, head of operations at GP Transco. “Our drivers showed patience, professionalism, and commitment throughout a very challenging market, and this increase is a direct reflection of how much we value their work.”

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Cass Data Signals Modest Volume Inflection Ahead

After 40 months of year-over-year declines, multimodal shipments fell just 1.2% year over year in May—the smallest drop in 18 months. Domestic intermodal volumes drove the improvement. The two-year stacked decline narrowed to 5.2%, the smallest since February 2024.

Cass projects a 1.8% year-over-year volume increase for the second half, assuming normal seasonality.

Truckload linehaul rates rose 6.9% year over year—the largest gain in nearly four years and positive for 17 consecutive months.

A demand recovery appears underway, yet supply constraints from ongoing regulatory enforcement continue to support higher rates and crumbling routing guides. Carriers gain pricing power even as volumes stabilize modestly.

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Coalition Seeks to Strip New York, California of CDL Authority

The Small Business in Transportation Coalition has petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to decertify New York and California’s commercial driver’s license programs.

The June 10 filing argues both states are in substantial noncompliance with federal rules on non-domiciled CDLs and English-language proficiency. Audit rates exceeded 55% in New York and about 25% in California. The petition contends federal law requires decertification once those findings stand.

The filing cites the May 29 bus crash on Interstate 95 in Virginia that killed five people as evidence of safety risks tied to weak enforcement of licensing standards.

If successful, the action would revoke the states’ authority to issue CDLs and enforce stricter federal standards.

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SONAR spotlight: Truckload Capacity Is Smaller Than It Looks

(Source: SONAR)

Summary: Truckload volumes continue to trend higher than last year but remain depressed compared with four years of tender volume data. The Accepted SONAR Truckload Volume Index, or ASTVI, is calculated using SONAR’s Truckload Volume Index and Truckload Rejection Index to estimate the portion of tendered freight that was accepted.

Higher tender rejection rates relative to past years’ volumes continue to indicate that the supply of trucking capacity is meaningfully smaller. The ASTVI is 1% higher than this time last year. Compared with four years ago, tender volumes are down 18%.

Outbound tender rejection rates are 1,129 basis points higher than a year earlier. In 2026, the SONAR Truckload Rejection Index, or STRI, stands at 16.50%, compared with 5.21% in 2025. Compared with four years of historical data, the gap widens. Tender rejection rates averaged 10.64% in 2022, 3.86% in 2023, 4.93% in 2024 and 6.05% in 2025. This year’s average is 9.71% as of June 17.

Market analysts are also noting structural changes to trucking capacity compared with previous years. Ryder recently released its 2026 Freight Market Update, which noted that tender rejection rates have reached their highest levels since 2022 while spot market rates have risen above contract rates for the first time since 2021.

For the for-hire truckload sector, higher rates are a boon, but they will increase the costs of recruiting and retaining drivers. The private fleet and dedicated truckload segments are not immune from the upcoming driver pay pressures. Ryder noted, “Companies operating private fleets are also facing continued challenges related to driver recruitment, equipment costs, insurance expenses, and compliance requirements. As a result, many organizations are evaluating dedicated transportation models that provide the benefits of a private fleet without the operational burden.”

The supply of drivers and the possibility of a real shortage remain concerns. Higher rates create more demand for drivers, who in turn seek higher pay. Carriers may end up in an escalating bidding war, including through driver sign-on bonuses, with some drivers job-hopping to capitalize on the opportunity.

Additional headwinds for replenishing the driver pool include the DOT’s crackdown on CDL school quality, enhanced vetting through the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, and increased scrutiny of states for improperly issuing CDLs to both domiciled and nondomiciled drivers.