December availability of spot market freight saw a 103 percent year-over-year boost, rising to twice the level achieved in December 2008.
According to the TransCore Freight Index, freight volume was up 11 percent on the North American spot market (U.S. and Canada) from November.

The TransCore Freight Index measures truckload freight volume on load boards supported by the DAT Network, including 3sixty Freight Match, TruckersEdge.net and Link Logistics, the company's Canadian subsidiary.

TransCore attributes the year-over-year gap to both market growth in the second half of 2009 and extreme weakness that was experienced in the fourth quarter of 2008.

December's ratio of 2.65 loads posted per available truck was 145 percent higher than the load-to-truck ratio for December 2008. This strong increase is largely due to the combination of improving load volumes and prior year excess truck capacity that caused carriers to post available trucks more aggressively than seasonal norms.

Although December is typically one of the weaker months for spot freight, it was the strongest month in 2009, surpassing even June and September.

Brokers, 3PLs, carriers, and owner-operators in North America list more than 50 million loads and trucks per year across a variety of services feeding TransCore's DAT Network. As a result of this high volume, TransCore's Freight Index is representative of the ups and downs in U.S. spot market freight availability.