LTL Markets (The Business of it all)

Hi guys,
We talk a lot about Less-Then-Truck Load as far as the actually work goes doing pick ups and deliveries and pulling doubles and triples and what to do and what not to do especially when you have a 2,000 converter dolly, but sometimes it's cool to look past all that and see what it's all about from a business stand point as far as who's who and who does what and how much money does each "firm" make and what they do. I know a lot of you might already know all this, but I figure will throw some numbers around and share some cool information knowledge is power plus I'll try to make this some interesting reading and I'll throw in some pictures too! I've been studying all this stuff for a very long time way before I was a driver my self I may have even still been in high school and even middle school for that matter doing some reading I know for a while I did some reading about the whole USF-TNT Redstar Fiasco which is old news now and is not relevant anymore remember the TNT companies? That was way before YRC. Anyhow let's check it out and see what's going on, I was looking at the rankings out there and will talk about what we think.

Right now on the business side of the LTL world there is without a doubt no debate Old Dominion is the hottest thing in LTL they are Red Hot can't be stopped there the Elisha Cuthbert (look her up) of the whole thing. However they are not #1 they are #4 in 2015 rankings. In 2015 Old Dominion had annual revenue of 2,893,000 they are the fastest growing LTL company in the list of top 25 carriers they rank #4 and actually out run UPS Freight which is #5 UPS Freight in 2014 had revenue of 2,633,000 and 2015 had revenue of 2,479,000 in 2015 UPS Freight is down 5.9% while Old Dominion is up 6.8%.

Numbers #1,2 and 3 are as follows
FedEx Freight #1 in rankings
XPO Logistics - formerly Con-way Freight acquired by XPO in October of 2015 by the way there business is down -3% and they got crushed by Old Dominion. Old Dominion came in there and said it's time to end this non sense and that's exactly what they did.
Then number 3 Yellow Roadway Freight. They are getting pummeled they are number 3, but Old Dominion is right on there coattails pretty much breathing down there neck. YRC Freight down -5.8%.

I don't know what the current numbers are, but if trends continue this maybe the year Old Dominion beats the mighty Yellow-Roadway company as far as national LTL goes.

Roadrunner getting creamed -10% loss in business in 2015 Averitt and Central Transport are actually not to far from each other Averitt has the lead over Central Transport, but Central was up in 2015 by 1.2% I guess Central Transport added a dozen terminals in 2015.

Averitt from Cookville, TN who used to interline with Preston the 151 line (long gone now) up 4.6% in sales so those guys are doing pretty good there red racers are racing all over the south east USA getting the freight delivered.

Moving to the Mid-Atlantic/East Coastal area kind of Dayton Freight, Pitt-Ohio and NEMF are all kind of grouped together. Dayton Freight has the lead followed by Pitt-Ohio and then NEMF who had a pretty good year in 2015. Pitt-Ohio is stable business was only up 0.8% but they did not go backwards. Dayton Freight is 16th in the list of LTL carriers on the top 25 and they have revenue of $462,000,000 business up 4.6% for the mid western carrier.

A Duie Pyle rounds out the east coast carriers zero growth from 2014-2015 however they did not go backwards business is stable so it's true what they say Pyle People Deliver.

Saia took a little bit of a beating in 2015 business down 4%. That's one carrier I don't see to much of really. I know they exist, but they didn't have a very good 2015.

Right now and I've heard people say this were in a little bit of a dry economic market much like my dating life things are a tad slow, now they all think it will pass they said Old Dominion is still growing and doing very well and for I guess 2016 has $139 million going towards terminals and service centers and $279 million going towards buying tractors, trailers, converter dolly's and straight trucks so that's a good chunk of money and it shows too, I know from watching the Old Dominion fleet across the street from the drop yard I work out of they have lots of clean fancy top of the line trucks and trailers fancy Wabash 28' trailers. I remember not to long ago everyone who was anyone all the major carriers bought Wabash trailers they were like the trailer to have if you wanted to be considered one of the cool kids. Where I work we have Great Dane, but Great Dane is numbero uno if you need refer puppy's.

Anyhow they said were in an "economic soft patch" however Old Dominion continues to gain market share and Saia figures they will bounce back just fine I guess Saia is opening another terminal in Chicago so they are going to go right through. XPO logistics nobody knows seems like Old Dominion is has put on the blinker and is in the passing lane with the pedal to the floor but to get to XPO they first have to pass up the YRC machine and then more independent regional carriers like Dayton Freight, Pitt-Ohio, NEMF and A Duie Pyle seem to be doing just fine and holding steady. So all in all the LTL markets depending on the carrier you work for seem to be alright from what I can tell. All in all I guess 2015 LTL summary was the whole LTL sector as a whole was down 1.0% so I guess that's not to to bad. Top 25 carriers your only down 0.5% for the whole show on that end so business is down, but only half a percent for 2015 which it could swing the other way this year. The only thing I can tell is Old Dominion is the company to watch love them or hate them they seem to be a very very well run organization.

Oh by the way you Estes guys are doing quite well Estes is the largest privately held LTL carrier number 6 on the top 25 and up 4.5% in sales volume so keep up the good work.

 

That's the chart this was based off of! A Duie Pyle zero growth even Pitt-Ohio didn't do much at all. Road Runner those guys got creamed. Then Ward at the bottom you never hear about them.

 

They did maintenance in the years before? Kidding kidding I know they have some rough stuff. Although they do have some new equipment now as far as tractors go, but you can tell the new trucks are cheapest base model that can be bought.

 

I don't even know if I've ever seen a Wilson truck come to think of it.