Truck Tonnage Index: ATA Truck Tonnage Index
A monthly measure of the total tonnage hauled by the U.S. for-hire trucking industry.
The Truck Tonnage Index, published monthly by the American Trucking Associations, measures the amount of freight tonnage — not the number of loads or dollars spent — moved by for-hire motor carriers. It's built from a survey panel of trucking companies and is seasonally adjusted, making it one of the standard government-and-industry-cited gauges of physical freight demand.
Who publishes it
American Trucking Associations (ATA), monthly.
How to read it
- Reported as an index value and as month-over-month / year-over-year percentage change — the percentage change is what gets quoted in most freight news coverage.
- Seasonally adjusted (SA) figures are the ones to compare across different months; not-seasonally-adjusted (NSA) figures compare only to the same month a year prior.
- Tonnage lags tender-based indices like OTRI/OTVI by weeks because it's a monthly survey, not a daily electronic-tender feed.
Why it matters
Tonnage is a physical-volume read, independent of price — it tells you whether the economy is actually moving more freight, which is a different question from whether rates are rising. Because it's tied to the broader for-hire trucking industry rather than one company's data set, it's frequently cited alongside GDP and industrial production as a real-economy indicator.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Truck Tonnage Index the same as OTVI?
No. OTVI (FreightWaves SONAR) tracks the number of contracted load tenders and updates near-daily. The Truck Tonnage Index tracks physical tonnage hauled and is published monthly by the American Trucking Associations from a survey panel — a slower but broader measure.
Why does tonnage matter if rates aren't part of it?
Tonnage isolates demand from price. A rising tonnage index with falling spot rates points to a loosening capacity market absorbing more freight; rising tonnage with rising rates points to genuine capacity tightness.
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