Supply Chain Intelligence Brief

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TRUCKING

Truckload Volumes Continue to Slide

Heavy Duty Trucking Jack Roberts November 18, 2025

Both DAT Freight and Analytics and the American Trucking Associations released their assessments of freight activity in October 2025. And the results are not encouraging.

DAT opened its report by noting that truckload volumes fell for the fourth straight month in October. The slide, the firm said, is already casting a “long, cool shadow on shipping activity for holiday retail goods.”

ATA Truck Tonnage Index Fell 2.1% in October

American Trucking Associations November 18, 2025

October drop was the largest in 21 months

“October’s weakness shows the freight market remains very difficult, dropping the most of any single month since January 2024,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello. “As a result, the level of freight was the lowest since January 2025. Compared with a year earlier, tonnage experienced its largest decline in 2025.”

Trucking takeaways from Trimble: volume down, driver population sliding

Freight Waves John Kingston November 18, 2025

The overview of the freight market at Trimble’s Insight conference here for customers and partners had the feel of FreightWaves/SONAR’s monthly State of Freight webinar, as experts in the field tried to peel back the reasons for the persistence of the freight recession and when the market might turn.

Spot rates Inch up, but truckload spot market remains soft heading into year-end, reports DAT

Logistics Management Jeff Berman November 18, 2025

“Freight volumes in the third quarter and October reflect what we’re seeing in the broader goods economy, with shippers drawing on inventory built up earlier in the year to reduce their exposure to tariffs and weak consumer demand,” said Ken Adamo, DAT Chief of Analytics, in a statement. “As a result, the traditional peak holiday shipping season looks virtually non-existent this year.”

Schneider uses AI to streamline logistics workflows

Trucking Dive Alejandra Carranza November 18, 2025

Since the collaboration commenced, Schneider has achieved a more than 50% improvement in average cycle time to schedule appointments and 24% reduction in the cost per appointment scheduled, per the release from EXL.

Non-domiciled CDLs back in action after court blocks FMCSA rule?

OverDrive Alex Lockie November 18, 2025

Overdrive contacted more than a dozen since the court decision and found that despite Lujan’s big win and FMCSA’s message to states about the pause, not a single state Overdrive spoke to would license Lujan. That includes all six of the states FMCSA’s emergency rulemaking called out for inconsistencies with federal regulations on CDL issuance, as well as a few other states identified as hubs of non-domiciled CDL issuance.

Judge Backs Yellow Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Plan

Transport Topics Keiron Greenhalgh November 18, 2025

About 11 of the 325 terminals Yellow owned or leased when filing for bankruptcy remained unsold in September, a court filing showed. The real estate sales generated more than $2 billion in revenue.

The estate also received net proceeds of $175.74 million from rolling stock sales that generated gross proceeds of $236.42 million, according to an Aug. 29 filing.

SHIPPERS / 3PLs

Home Depot online sales, GMS acquisition help lift Q3 revenue

Digital Commerce 360 Abbas Haleem November 18, 2025

Fulfillment speeds and new tools have helped Home Depot grow its online sales in its fiscal Q3 2025, executives shared on the retailer’s earnings call with investors.

Total Home Depot sales in Q3 reached $41.4 billion, representing 2.8% year-over-year growth. That’s about $1.1 billion more than the $40.3 billion it recorded in Q3 2024 sales.

Link: Home Depot Q3 FY 2025 Performance Infographic

What Home Depot’s Q3-2025 Earnings May Tell Truckers About Freight in Q1

Freight Waves Adam Wingfield November 18, 2025

Home Depot’s guidance reduction isn’t just about stores. It’s about warehouse throughput, about how much the distribution network needs to haul. If they expect fewer projects (which drive product sales), they buy and ship less.

Related: Transport Topics Home Depot Lowers Forecast on Weak Housing Market

Kroger Closes 3 Automated Fulfillment Centers

Transport Topics/Associated Press Dee-Ann Durbin November 18, 2025

Stores are closer to customers, so orders can be delivered more quickly and cheaply, Sargent said. He said Kroger is capable of delivering orders in less than two hours from 97% of its 2,700 U.S. stores.

PepsiCo tests combined snack, beverage warehousing to cut costs

Supply Chain Dive Antone Gonsalves November 18, 2025

PepsiCo has begun testing in Texas the integration of its two largest North American business units — snacks and beverages — into a more unified distribution model to reduce costs and boost productivity, executives told investors last month.

INDUSTRY

Four straight weeks of increases in benchmark diesel price

Freight Waves John Kingston November 18, 2025

The weekly Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration average retail diesel price climbed 3.1 cents/gallon to $3.868/g, effective Monday but published Tuesday. With the increase, the price is now up 24.8 cts/g in the last four weeks and is at a level not seen since early July 2024.

Links: U.S. Energy Information Administration Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update and Weekly U.S. No 2 Diesel Ultra Low Sulfur (0-15 ppm) Retail Prices (Chart)

POLA and POLB volumes see October declines

Logistics Management Jeff Berman November 18, 2025

But he cautioned that from now until the end of the year, POLA expects a seasonal slowdown in the 10%-to-15% range compared to the same period in 2024.

“There’s a reason for that dip,” he said. “Last year’s numbers were unusually high as many shippers pulled cargo forward right after the election in anticipation of tariffs and changes in trade policy. Also, this year, retail and manufacturing inventories were already well-stocked, so there’s simply less need for immediate replenishment combined.

Related: Freight Waves Trade volatility pushes LA port towards new record

October intermodal volumes trend down, reports IANA

Logistics Management Jeff Berman November 19, 2025

Trailers, at 39,929, fell 25.0% annually, steeper than September’s 19.7% annual decrease. Domestic containers, at 815,243, rose 3.4%, and all domestic equipment, which is comprised of trailers and domestic containers, saw a 1.6% annual gain, to 855,352. ISO, or international containers, at 761,604 were off 5.7% annually.

US Postal Service makes U-turn on last-mile delivery

Freight Waves Eric Kulisch November 18, 2025

Consolidation of distribution centers and regional transfer hubs in the past four years under predecessor Louis DeJoy has allowed the Postal Service to dramatically improve its middle-mile logistics operations, but the organization should leverage its biggest advantage —the first-and-last mile delivery network, he said at the board of governor’s meeting.

Trimble’s Next-Generation TMS Powered by Artificial Intelligence

Heavy Duty Trucking Deborah Lockridge November 17, 2025

Designed to be the “central nervous system” and intelligent center of a connected transportation management ecosystem, Trimble TMS integrates AI and machine learning to automate complex workflows and provide predictive insights.

Reshoring Echoes the ’90s, But U.S. Supply Chains Aren’t Ready Yet

Supply Chain 24/7 November 18, 2025

As manufacturers bring more production back to the U.S., the reshoring trend is gaining momentum, but experts warn that the hardest work is still ahead. According to Andrei Quinn-Barabanov, Vice President and Senior Analyst at Moody’s, early efforts to restore domestic manufacturing are still in their infancy and come with major risks.

Related: Supply Chain Management Review Beyond reshoring: Nearshoring to Mexico

TECHNOLOGY

Three Years from GPT-3 to Gemini 3

One Useful Thing Ethan Mollick November 18, 2025

Three years ago, we were impressed that a machine could write a poem about otters. Less than 1,000 days later, I am debating statistical methodology with an agent that built its own research environment. The era of the chatbot is turning into the era of the digital coworker. To be very clear, Gemini 3 isn’t perfect, and it still needs a manager who can guide and check it. But it suggests that “human in the loop” is evolving from “human who fixes AI mistakes” to “human who directs AI work.” And that may be the biggest change since the release of ChatGPT.

Google Seeks to Shake Up Chatbot Race With New Gemini Version

The Wall Street Journal Katherine Blunt November 18, 2025 $Subscription Based

The company said Gemini 3 will improve the sophistication of answers to queries in its Gemini app, as well as those made using AI Mode in the Google search engine. The new model is also significantly more skilled at coding, developing applications and generating images, the company said.

Link: Google A New Era of Intelligence with Gemini 3

Making Sense of Research on How People Use AI

HBR Marc Zao-Sanders November 18, 2025 $Subscription Based

In a power-law distribution, a few events are disproportionately large, while most are very small. OpenAI sees 78% of all messages fitting into its top-three categories (practical guidance, writing, and seeking information). Anthropic observes that 20% of task categories account for 87% of usage. In my research, the top-20 use case buckets account for more than half of the total use cases. This concentration suggests that leaders should focus AI investments on a small handful of high- impact use cases, rather than trying to do everything at once.

Microsoft Ignite 2025: Copilot and agents built to power the Frontier Firm

Microsoft Ignite Jared Spataro November 18, 2025

The future of work will be shaped by Frontier Firms—organizations that are human-led and agent-operated. These companies are reshaping how work gets done, empowering every employee with an AI assistant, amplifying impact with human-agent teamwork, and reinventing business processes with agents. Today at Microsoft Ignite, we introduced new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot to help every customer become Frontier.

SUSTAINABILITY / SAFETY / SECURITY

Federal appeals court halts implementation of California’s climate law SB 261

ESG Dive Zoya Mirza November 18, 2025

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday halted implementation of California’s Senate Bill 261, a law that requires business entities with revenues exceeding $500 million to publicly disclose their climate-related financial risks and countermeasures.

Harbinger lands $160M Series C, inks initial FedEx deal for 53 electric trucks

Freight Waves Thomas Wasson November 18, 2025

Medium-duty EV truck and hybrid vehicle maker Harbinger recently announced it has raised a $160 million Series C funding round. With this Series C, Harbinger has raised $358 million to date. In addition to the investment, FedEx placed an initial order for 53 Harbinger EVs.

BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY

What Pixar’s ‘WALL-E’ Got Right About the Future of Work

The Wall Street Journal Chris Kornelis November 18, 2025 $Subscription Based

In the 2008 animated movie, science and technology have provided humanity every known convenience—trashing the Earth in the process. Humans have long since lived a slothful existence in a spaceship where work is unnecessary and even walking is optional. While the mess on their home planet is left to a dedicated, warmhearted robot, the humans in space are steered by a less-than-benevolent computer pilot named AUTO.

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