Long Distance General Freight Trucking
Industry Profile Report
Dive Deep into the industry with a 25+ page industry report (pdf format) including the following chapters
Industry Overview Current Conditions, Industry Structure, How Firms Operate, Industry Trends, Credit Underwriting & Risks, and Industry Forecast.
Call Preparation Call Prep Questions, Industry Terms, and Weblinks.
Financial Insights Working Capital, Capital Financing, Business Valuation, and Financial Benchmarks.
Industry Profile Excerpts
Industry Overview
The 57,300 long distance general freight trucking companies in the US provide truckload (TL) and less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation services between cities and across the country. TL trucks carry a load for a single customer, transporting the load directly to its destination. LTL trucks carry goods for more than one customer and make multiple stops to drop-off and pick-up freight. These trucking firms transport a wide variety of goods and may also provide services such as warehousing, packaging, and customs brokering for international transport. Long distance trips typically exceed 250 miles.
Volatility of Fuel Costs
Fuel consumption is a major expense for trucking companies, with nine miles to the gallon of diesel considered a good MPG range.
Rising Need for Drivers
Because of truck drivers’ difficult lifestyle and time spent away from home, many companies have trouble finding and retaining qualified long-haul drivers.
Industry size & Structure
A typical long distance general freight trucking company operates out of a single location, employs fewer than 20 workers, and generates about $4-5 million annually.
- The long distance general freight trucking industry consists of about 57,300 companies, which employ about 804,000 workers and generate about $252 billion annually.
- The truckload (TL) segment of the industry accounts for 88% of firms and 71% of industry revenue. The less than truckload (LTL) segment accounts for 12% of firms and 29% of industry revenue.
- The TL segment is fragmented with the 20 largest firms representing 30% of the segment’s revenue. The LTL segment is concentrated with the 20 largest firms representing 77% of the segment’s revenue.
- Large companies include Schneider, Old Dominion, YRC Freight, Swift Transportation, JB Hunt, and Werner Enterprises.
Industry Forecast
Long Distance General Freight Trucking Industry Growth
Recent Developments
Mar 11, 2025 - Spot Rates Rise Amidst Tariff Threats
- The on-again, off-again uncertainty of Trump’s tariffs against North American trade partners is beginning to roil the trucking industry, particularly on the Canadian border. In an effort to get ahead of tariff-induced cost increases, shippers are scrambling to accelerate shipments across borders, causing a spike in spot rates. Data from DAT Freight & Analytics shows that spot rates from US to Canada for dry bed, containers, and reefer trucks shot up by 35% to a two-year high by early March 2025. Before the latest tariff deadline, dry bed volume along the Toronto to Chicago trade route surged almost 60% in one week. It all adds up to a potential bumpy year for an industry that hauls 67% of surface trade-goods across the US/Canada border each year, according to the American Trucking Association.
- Trucking cargo thefts rose across North America in 2024 - jumping 27% over the previous year to an all-time high - per trucking analytics firm Verisk CargoNet. The company’s annual analysis found 3,625 theft incidents during the year with an average estimated value of about $202,000 per incident, up from $180,000 a year ago. Texas and California reported the biggest increases in the number of thefts, up 39% and 33%, respectively. Verisk CargoNet also reported the types of cargo most targeted - consumer electronics and computer hardware, produce, raw and finished copper products, cosmetics, and vitamin supplements, among others. Break-ins and full-trailer theft was still the main tactic, although criminals are becoming more sophisticated, including hacking trucking firms’ back-end systems and forging documents and cargo manifests. Break-ins and trailer theft were most prevalent in the major markets of Atlanta, Dallas, LA, and New York City.
- Trucking industry employment remained flat throughout 2024, while average wages for nonsupervisory employees in the long distance general freight trucking specialty segment increased more than 4% year-over-year in November 2024, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). A significant driver shortage brought on by attrition through retirements and younger-employee burnout in a stressful and isolating job has been hampering the industry. Truck drivers are in high demand and paid well as a result. An analysis of industry job postings by freight factoring company altLINE estimates that there is an ongoing deficit of 24,000 drivers. When combined with the average $3,900 per week a truck makes in revenue (using trucking giant Schneider National’s reported earnings), the staff shortage costs the freight industry $95 million a week.
- The trucking industry’s transformation from diesel-powered fleets to environmentally cleaner electric versions came to an abrupt halt when the second Trump administration ended the federal government’s EV mandates in January 2025. The changes were widely expected, so much so that California - the country’s most aggressive testing ground for EV mandates - preemptively killed its new rules that would have drastically reduced emissions and boosted funding for building related charging station infrastructure. With a new government in power that is hostile towards the industry’s EV transformation, the uncertainty surrounding mandates and the expectation that the EPA will no longer support the moves throws trucking’s electric vehicle transformation effort into doubt.
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