Freight pricing is climbing while transport capacity is still shrinking
Freight pricing kept expanding through the August 2026 survey month while the capacity to move that freight kept contracting. Transportation Prices read 90.0 and Transportation Capacity read 40.0, which sits below the no change line. Warehousing Prices read 75.0 in the same month.
- 90.0 Transportation Prices, August 2026 Survey Month
- 40.0 Transportation Capacity, Below The 50.0 No Change Line
- 75.0 Warehousing Prices, Same Survey Month
The index is a diffusion measure, so each reading describes a rate and a direction of change rather than a dollar figure or a volume, and 50.0 is the line between growth and contraction. Transportation Capacity at 40.0 sits below that line, which means capacity was still contracting through August. The contraction was less severe than the month before, and that easing is the number most likely to be misread: an easing contraction is not capacity arriving. Any plan built on the freight market loosening before the fourth quarter is wrong in the direction that costs money, which is a dated and concrete reason to take a scenario planning or network modeling conversation in September rather than November. With warehousing pricing expanding as well, holding more inventory closer to demand no longer works as the cheap hedge against volatile transport, so the supplier who can argue cost out of both sides at once is in a stronger room than the one selling plain square footage.