On October 11, my company co-hosted the 2017 Surface Transportation Summit with my partners at Newcom Business Media. I am very pleased to report that we had another packed house for what has become the premier educational and networking event in Freight Transportation in Canada.
The day was again kicked off by one of Canada’s leading economists, Carlos Gomes of Scotiabank and by two investment analysts, Walter Spracklin, CFA, Equity Research Analyst - Transportation Sector, RBC Capital Markets and John Larkin, CFA, Managing Director and Head, Transportation Capital Markets Research, Stifel Financial Corp., who provided an American perspective. These gentlemen highlighted that 2018 will be a year of economic growth. This economic growth, coupled with the ELD mandate and the limited supply of quality drivers in the United States, will translate into tight capacity and higher freight rates.
One of the slides that caught my eye was the one inserted above from the John Larkin presentation. John’s views are consistent with what one of the largest US trucking operators, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, is telling its shipper customers. They are advising them to budget for transportation cost increases as high as “10 percent or more” as the peak fall distribution season and electronic logging mandate intensify a driver shortage. “This is one of the highest periods of turbulence and volatility in supply we have ever experienced, and we don’t think it will abate any time soon,” John Roberts, president and CEO, and Shelley Simpson, chief commercial officer, said in a letter to J.B. Hunt customers.
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