Guide to Inland Distribution & Warehousing
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Carrier executives say the increase in mini-bids reflects a lack of dependable capacity, rather than a desire for cost savings.“ Unlike the past few years, shippers are generally not issuing off-cycle bids opportunistically to improve service or drive prices lower,” Knight-Swift’ s Miller said.“ These actions are driven by a need to secure capacity.”
Werner’ s Leathers said customers returned after freight awarded elsewhere could no longer move under current pricing, while J. B. Hunt’ s Frazier said customers are facing
“ significant challenges across their routing guides.” Avery Vise, VP of trucking at FTR Transportation Intelligence, said contract pricing now follows the recovery in the spot market.“ We expect contract rates will continue to rise pretty much into the third quarter of next year,” Vise said, with low double-digit increases expected across most equipment types if current market conditions persist.
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Each GW of US data center expansion requires roughly 100,000 truckloads. O2O Creative / Getty Images
US data center capacity is expected to increase from approximately 24 GW to 110 GW between 2026 and 2030, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie. That’ s 86 GW, or approximately 8.6 million truckloads, according to Croke’ s estimate.
“ Do we have the capacity to support this? Right now, we don’ t,” said Keith Prather, managing director and partner at Armada Corporate Intelligence.“ What’ s saving us at the moment is that other elements of construction, such as housing, are weak.”
A recent report by Synergy Research Group shows that the total capacity of US data centers will double in the next three years as booming demand drives the aggressive buildout of the facilities owned by hyperscale operators.
That’ s certain to cut into capacity available to other shippers, and to boost pricing not just for flatbed and specialized freight, but all categories of goods. A lack of transportation capacity could become an anchor slowing faster data center growth.
‘ Real and sustained increase’
Plenty of different areas have exposure to data center construction, and they’ re all drawing on a diminished pool of capacity, especially in the US truckload market.
“ Every major component of the buildout moves by truck: generators, transformers, cooling systems, structural
www. joc. com steel,” said Melissa Suedbeck, vice president of operations at TA Dedicated, a US-based transportation subsidiary of Canada’ s TFI International.
“ We have seen a real and sustained increase in demand for open-deck capacity to move power modules for data centers,” Suedbeck said. Data centers are“ one of the most active demand drivers in the freight market right now.”
“ Do we have the capacity to support this? Right now, we don’ t.”
Expanding demand is colliding with short supply. How much capacity has left the US trucking market is hard to fix. Large, public truckload carriers have cut their truck counts 15.5 % since 2022, according to the Journal of Commerce Truckload Capacity Index.
The American Transportation Research Institute( ATRI) estimates truck fleets have cut 2.4 % of their trucks and idled another 10 %. ATRI’ s driver-per-truck ratio for 2025, released in June, was 0.9, which means roughly nine drivers were available for every 10 trucks.
The rate of attrition is accelerating, according to trucking analysts and carrier executives. Truck drivers are
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