I have now seen it all.

Rob said:
Could you imagine naming your company Low Freight Rate?

Just seen a posting on the link for a load so I called. $600 or best price is what I was told for Toronto ON to Skokie IL 536 miles at a whopping $1.12 a mile. 43000lbs of food product so I would imagine appointments at both ends to boot.

Another for the DNU
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And you KNOW some bonehead eventually agreed to that ridiculous rate anyway!
 
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theman said:
$600 is definitely on the low side ... but if you're going to win freight on this lane it's not going to happen at $2.00 per mile for sure.
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Why the inbound Chicago rate has been dropping and slow for a year. Cannot make it out or in does not sound like a winning formula to me.

I did not even need the load I just called because I could not believe the name.

I could use a few skids going that way if anyone has any that pay a fair rate. I deliver ib Chicago every Monday and always have room.
 
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Rob said:
Could you imagine naming your company Low Freight Rate?

Just seen a posting on the link for a load so I called. $600 or best price is what I was told for Toronto ON to Skokie IL 536 miles at a whopping $1.12 a mile. 43000lbs of food product so I would imagine appointments at both ends to boot.

Another for the DNU
Click to expand...
They might attract shippers with that. Don't think it will do the same for trucking companies...
 
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$600 Toronto to Chicago that's the rate for two skids. Other wise run empty if have load back.
 
The rate has been driven down over the years primarily by larger contract type carriers and intermodal carriers. In order to reposition equipment, intermodal providers have to do it or the equipment doesn't turn ... given that they are public companies and it's all about utilization they just do it. A lot of contract type carriers are otherwise running empty to Chicago (and Ohio, and some other places) in order to fulfill their commitments on freight outbound from Chicago and those areas.

Obviously, if there is a sustained turn in the market where the balance is more even and freight prospects are better, things will change. But that said, $600 is maybe $100 too low compared to what the general market rating is/has been for a while.

I still don't think we're going to see much of an improvement in prospects for Ontario manufacturing. I believe that what is happening now is more the product of a lack of spending, by consumers and by distributors/retailers on inventories. I think it's scary out there but at least not quite as bad as the latter part of 2008.
 
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What we have noticed is Ontario based trucking companies seem to lower their rates to get the freight compared to Quebec based trucking companies.

Booking GTA to USA versus MTL to USA, the GTA rates have a larger variance in cost while the MTL rates seems to be higher per mile & more consistent.

p.s. There also seems to be a lot more freight & a lot more carriers in GTA.
 
The denser the lane, the more "competitive" the price. This is why I prefer off beat traffic like Waco, TX to Glace Bay, NS (three loads today)... nobody runs that lane on a regular basis, and when loads come up they always pay very well on account of that.

If I were a small carrier in the GTA area I'd stay away from the dense lanes. Instead focus (and market to death) a lane like GTA to Reno, NV.. or Salt Lake City.. or maybe Colorado Springs, CO. The bigger outfits aren't likely to be interested in those lanes, and a small carrier can really stand out from the crowd. The big lanes like GTA to Chicago are pretty much beat to death.. thousands of carriers run them and the rate is beat down so bad that its all about who can work for less.
 
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Lanes where both the origin and destination points are also prone to getting cross shopped with intermodal which makes them more 'competitive'. The problem with running lanes off the beaten path is that the % of deadhead miles is generally going to be a lot larger, so from a carrier standpoint they are higher risk lanes ... sometimes one will do really well with them, sometimes they'll get their butts kicked.

One may run denser traffic lanes at lower margins (especially true of fleets with economies of scale) but there is also lower risk. Something a pure freight broker doesn't really need to take into account.

Also ... most carriers use brokers largely because they don't have the resources to market themselves. Trucking companies that are effective marketers don't use brokers as a very significant source of their revenues. They have to feed their sales reps.
 
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Also to Sean's point, rates from QC to USA typically have higher RPMs than from Ontario, but on inbound it's generally the opposite. I think if you compare round trip RPMs in both provinces for routes of the same distance (notice I didn't say to the same destinations necessarily), there may be just a bit of a higher number for QC based carriers that would be largely based on fuel prices in QC itself.

Even though we're not that far apart, Ontario and Quebec are definitely 2 distinct markets.
 
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theman said:
Lanes where both the origin and destination points are also prone to getting cross shopped with intermodal which makes them more 'competitive'. The problem with running lanes off the beaten path is that the % of deadhead miles is generally going to be a lot larger, so from a carrier standpoint they are higher risk lanes ... sometimes one will do really well with them, sometimes they'll get their butts kicked.
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That's where intense and focussed marketing comes in. Throw everything but the kitchen sink at filling your lane... do whatever it takes.. and you won't have ANY empty miles. Several of my carrier partners do just that: one of them runs nothing but Houston-Calgary. His empty miles have been ZERO for years as he runs his trucks terminal to terminal and outsources the p&d in both cities. Instead of having thousands of competitors running open board he has maybe three or four, and he's numero unno in his lane.
 
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