How do I find which lanes are hot at the moment?

i use a load board called 123loadboard.com...27 bucks a month and they have as a standard feature a lane average that serves pretty well in negotiation you should check it out especially since you are lookin at new lanes. I think there's a trial period of a couple weeks or something. I'll throw up a screen shot here in a sec so you know what I mean.

 

This is a dry van/reefer load, the rate is the average for that lane over the last 90 days. Pretty Crummy rate you're probly better off stringing some loads together to get home lol anyways hope this helps

 

ITS has this, you can see what is picking up and dropping by state.

 

And they have this also.

 

Upgrade to the ITS with automatic refresh or ditch it altogether and get DAT Power. The features are worth the $150 a month. If your livelihood is off load boards get the best tools possible and don't cheap out.

 

I don't sit there and stare at it either. Sure is nice if the window is open on there for the past 3 hours and I walk by just glancing at it everything is real time. Loads that get booked are actually taken down. Loads have posted rates without having to open the load, if the broker puts a rate on it. You kind of have to figure out which one works best for you.

I see more loads on DAT. Maybe where you run ITS is better? I like their hot markets maps - exactly the info you are asking about. They have info on tri-haul lanes that might interest you but I never use it. I seem to get much better loads from it. I use both but mostly DAT. In different areas one may be better than the other. They have a lot of the same loads. They also have brokers who post/use one but not the other.