Chart of the week: Outbound Tender Volume Index, Outbound Tender Rejection Rate – USA SONAR: OTVI.USA, OTRI.USA
The national outbound tender volume index (OTVI), which measures truck demand, hit a record low for the month of October last week, registering a value of 9,311. This places the index approximately 19% less than last year and 15% below 2023 for the same period. Normally, a collapse of this magnitude would cause a corresponding drop in bid rejections and spot rates. However, almost the opposite has happened: rejection rates (OTRI) are higher than 2023 and 2024 levels, while spot rates have moved erratically over the past two weeks, but with a mostly upward trend. This suggests that capacity is leaving the market faster than demand is declining, but let’s dig deeper.
A common question people ask is: “How many trucks are on the road?” While intuitive, it is an incomplete question. There could be a million trucks available for 500 loads and we could still face a capacity problem if those trucks are not in the right places. This type of imbalance occurs frequently, even in well-supplied markets, although the effects are usually short-lived.
The rise of freight brokers and freight boards has improved shippers’ visibility and connectivity to available freight. These tools speed up market response times, which can make rates volatile in the short term but help prevent prolonged capacity shortages.
Almost all operator networks operate out of balance. Carriers are constantly repositioning equipment from markets with excess inbound freight to those with greater outbound demand. Southern California is the quintessential example of this imbalance.
In Los Angeles, the Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) consistently exceeds the Inbound Tender Volume Index (ITVI). Without carriers intentionally driving empty (or “idling”), this market would quickly run out of available trucks.
Carriers compensate by charging higher rates for loads leaving undersupplied markets like Los Angeles (known as transportation) and lower rates for transporting goods out of oversupplied markets (known as returns).
One of the best-known return markets is Lakeland, Florida, where bidding data indicates nearly twice as much outbound freight as inbound. This imbalance is why Central Florida rates are often among the lowest in the country.
Over the past 18 months, long-haul demand (defined as freight moving more than 800 miles) has fallen by about 30% year over year. Much of this decline is due to the shift of freight transportation toward rail and intermodal service. As many carriers advance their inventories and extend delivery times nationwide, the urgency to move freight by truck has diminished.
Today, Intermodal offers near-record savings compared to trucking, making it an easy option for shippers who can use it. But this change has disrupted connectivity between regions, making road transport more regionalized and more difficult to maintain as a national network. As a result, the market has become more vulnerable to demand spikes on long-haul rails.
This trend is reflected in the data: Long-haul tender rejection rates (LOTRI) rose to 12.5% this month, the highest since May 2024. At that time, a wave of unexpected imports from the West Coast, driven by concerns about the stability of the maritime service, caused a temporary increase in rejections. The most recent increase was not accompanied by volume.
Recent crackdowns on immigrant and non-domiciled drivers may also be contributing to the tightening of conditions. California, a frequent target of law enforcement efforts by the Trump administration, has come under greater scrutiny than other states, suggesting a regional political bias in regulatory actions.
While it can be argued that ICE’s recent redoubling of efforts in the trucking sector may be a factor recently, it’s hard to say that’s been the case all year. Rejection rates rose without a similar increase in demand in July and August before falling again in September. This supports carrier network challenges more than regulatory activity.
Spot rates from Los Angeles to Chicago, a lane that competes strongly with intermodal, have been increasingly erratic throughout 2025 and have been trending upward since May. Anyone operating in this lane on the transactional side has likely experienced a growing inconsistency in available capacity.
FMCSA data analyzed by Carrier Details shows that capacity continues to leave the market at a rapid pace. These data reflect more the multi-year decline in freight transportation than ICE raids and regulatory pressure. Additional pressure from the government is helping to exacerbate the effects of freight’s long recession and making it less vulnerable to a worsening demand-side economy.
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