ATA truck tonnage rose 0.8% in September and was flat from a year earlier
Seasonally adjusted tonnage reached 114 in September, but ATA's chief economist calls volumes soft even as capacity keeps shrinking.
For-hire truck tonnage in the United States rose 0.8% in September from August, according to the American Trucking Associations' advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index. ATA released the figure on October 20, 2026. Tonnage was flat compared with September 2025.
The seasonally adjusted index stood at 114 in September, up from 113.1 in August. The index uses 2015 as its base year, set at 100. August's reading, first reported as a 0.2% decline, has since been revised up.
The flat year-over-year result was an improvement from August, when the index was 1.3% below its level a year earlier. For the first nine months of 2026, tonnage was up 0.9% from the same period in 2025. ATA said most of that gain came from strong year-over-year increases from February through April.
The quarter was still weak
ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said tonnage ended the quarter on a better note. He also said weakness in July and August left the third quarter negative, both compared with the second quarter and compared with a year earlier.
He described tonnage levels as soft. He said, however, that capacity is still contracting, which is producing a better market for motor carriers. In other words, freight volumes are not growing much, but fewer trucks are competing for them.
Raw numbers
The index that is not seasonally adjusted measures the actual change in tonnage hauled. It was 114.8 in September, down 1.4% from August's 116.4.
How the index works
ATA bases the index on surveys of its member carriers and has done so since the 1970s. Both the seasonally adjusted and unadjusted versions are dominated by contract freight, not spot market loads. That means the index can move differently from spot rate and load-board data.
ATA labels the September figure preliminary. It could change in the final report, which ATA says it issues around the fifth day of each month.
For context, ATA says trucks carry 72.7% of the tonnage moved by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and retail goods. Trucks hauled 11.27 billion tons of freight in 2024, and motor carriers collected $906 billion, or 76.9% of total revenue earned by all transport modes.
The next monthly release, covering October, will show whether the September uptick lasted into the fourth quarter.