The American Trucking Associations' advance seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index fell 2.9 percent in February after increasing a revised 3.5 percent in January 2011.
The latest drop put the seasonally adjusted index at 113.3 (2000=100) in February. In January, the SA index equaled 116.6. During December 2010 and January 2011, the SA tonnage index jumped a total of 6.1 percent.

The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 102 in February, down 2.8 percent from the previous month.

Compared with February 2010, tonnage climbed 4.2 percent, although this was smaller than January's 7.6 percent year-over-year increase. Through the first two months of the year, tonnage is up 5.9 percent compared with the same two months last year.

ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello said that the winter storms in February probably played a role in the latest reduction and that he wasn't concerned about the decrease.

"Tonnage is not going to increase every month, and in general I'm very pleased with freight volumes early this year." Costello also said the anecdotal reports from motor carriers are very encouraging. "I'm hearing a significant amount of positive news from fleets and that the largest concern continues to be the price of diesel fuel, not freight levels."

Peter Nesvold, chief transportation researcher at investment firm Jefferies & Co., notes that despite the drop in tonnage, his firm continues to forecast tonnage growth of 3 percent to 5 percent for this year overall.

Nesvold also notes that loads are actually a more important indicator of volumes for truckload carriers than tonnage, and reports that year-over-year growth in loads for large truckload carriers rebounded in January by 4.7 percent, with strength concentrated in bulk chemicals, up close to 19 percent year over year. Conversely, dry van volumes continued to fall, he said, contracting 4.7 percent year over year in January.

"Notwithstanding decelerating load growth, we continue to be impressed by the strength in TL pricing," Nesvold added, noting that dry van pricing continues to track at the high end of his firm's expectations (up 7.1 percent year over year in January), although the short-haul portion of the segment is only seeing a fraction of these gains.