Truckload carriers are raising their rates to cover increased costs from the new hours-of service rule, but not enough to keep up with the estimated loss of productivity, says Mark Montague of DAT, the load matching and analytic services company.

In a recent blog post, Montague said his analysis of spot market data shows that seasonally adjusted truckload rates have increased from 1.6% to 1.7% since July 1, when the rule went into effect.

Based on estimates that the rule will reduce productivity by 3% to 5%, this means the carriers are not recouping their cost of the rule, Montague writes.

“That means the carriers will be ‘eating’ about half of the revenue loss, at least until they can negotiate new contract rates for 2014,” he says.

New contracts typically are negotiated in the first period and implemented in the second, he said.