In October, TransCore's market research shows a 69 percent increase in spot market freight availability, compared to October 2009. For the third consecutive month, spot freight achieved the highest level for the month of October since 2005,

which was a peak year for spot market volume.

The year-over-year comparisons moving forward are not expected to return to the triple-digit increases seen early in 2010, say TransCore analysts, as the balance of this year's results will be compared to improving levels of freight volume seen in the second half of 2009.

On a month-over-month basis, load volume was 0.9 percent higher in October than in September.

Looking ahead to December, the best combinations of high freight volumes and favorable inbound-to-outbound load ratios come from Illinois, Ohio, California, Arizona and Virginia.

The TransCore Freight Index is based on the more than 60 million loads and trucks per year listed across a variety of services feeding TransCore's DAT Network.