DAT Freight Rates

Don't pay attention to it. Just spend few days calling, try to negotiate and you will see what each lane is paying

 

Depending on location it is not always accurate. It is an aggregate of submitted rates from those lanes. Like DUNE-T said you will be well served by calling and negotiating.

 

Its a good tool to get a general overview of what the rates are in certain areas. It gives you a range of $/mile and its generally fairly accurate with what shippers are offering, though not always. The others in this thread are right though, if you want accurate numbers for your own project then make the calls and negotiate for a rate you think is appropriate.

 

They're always wrong. DAT is a bunch of deceivers honestly. They cater more to brokers than carriers.

 

The numbers come only from brokers utilizing TMS compatible with DAT's -- which is not necessarily a representative sample.

The numbers are based on the last 90 days, which probably included either a peak season or a low season.

When they post "average" rates for the country or for a region, they are taking an average of the individual rates per mile instead of suming total revenue and dividing by total miles. So if you had 4 $2/mile 100-mile loads and 1 $1/mile 1,000 mile loads, DAT would say the average rpm is $1.80/mile ( (2+2+2+2+1)/5 ) instead of $1.29/mile ( (200+200+200+200+1000)/(100+100+100+100+1000) )