Shippers Eye Earlier Bid Cycles to Beat Market’s Turn
Capacity Cuts Due to Enforcement, Mounting Costs Tempt Shippers
Key Takeaways:
- J.B. Hunt executives said shippers are advancing bid cycles to lock in lower freight rates as the prolonged freight recession shows signs of nearing its end.
- Carrier capacity cuts tied to new commercial driver license regulations and enforcement have recently driven up spot freight rates in several U.S. markets.
- Industry leaders warned that persistent low rates, rising insurance costs and extended downturns are forcing small fleets out of business and straining carrier sustainability.
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SAN DIEGO — Wariness over when the ongoing freight rate recession may end is increasingly likely to convince shippers to move up their bid cycles, according to a senior executive at J.B. Hunt.
Customers are telling J.B. Hunt it has been a shipper’s market for longer than any of them expected, but they expect change in the market soon, said Director of Intermodal Pricing Amy Horn.
“The change is coming. They just don’t know when,” Horn told attendees of American Trucking Associations’ 2025 Management Conference and Exhibition.
Some customers are also asking for extended payment terms as more general macroeconomic uncertainty persists, Horn said.
Bid year for J.B. Hunt started Oct. 1.
Horn said some shippers are mulling advancing their bid cycles from January or February as they seek to lock in prices before the expected turn in the market favoring carriers.
Trucking activity in the U.S. decreased in September, reaching its lowest level in three months, according to ATA’s For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index.
Toward the end of September and at the beginning of October, however, there were spot freight market price spikes, with some of Horn’s fellow J.B. Hunt executives noting that part of the reason was likely the first indications of a cut in carrier capacity.
The rate increases, they said, correlated with the onset of new regulations on non-domiciled commercial driver license holders being required annually to renew their licenses in person along with tougher English-language proficiency enforcement requirements.
“The change is coming. [Customers] just don’t know when,” Horn said. (John Sommers II for Transport Topics)
Speaking on the Lowell, Ark.-based carrier’s third-quarter earnings call, Chief Operating Officer Nick Hobbs told analysts: “The reason you’ve seen spot rates up in the last couple of weeks — it’s been because of the enforcement activity.”
He added, “It’s just tightened it up, and so we’ve seen a little tightness in probably eight to 10 markets. And I think you can kind of follow the news around and see where [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is active in big metropolitan areas.”
J.B. Hunt ranks No. 3 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America, No. 1 on the intermodal sector list and No. 2 in truckload/dedicated. The company also ranks No. 4 on the logistics TT100 and No. 2 among freight brokerages.
In May 2019, there were 240,000 carriers and 2.6 million drivers, Jeff Tucker, CEO at freight brokerage Tucker Company Worldwide, told a recent conference. In May 2025, those numbers had risen to 320,000 carriers and 3.2 million drivers.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reckons about 200,000 drivers may be removed from the driver pool as a ramification of the CDL rule.
Anecdotal evidence showing heavy capacity and volume churn is coming through the channels, but official data confirming the details has yet to be released, Horn said.
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Carriers are also starting to exit the market because of the pain the freight recession is causing, Horn and her fellow MCE panelists said.
“There are a lot of small fleets that have cut to the bone,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello.
Fleets are putting off routine maintenance among other cutbacks. “You do these deferrals; it’s going to catch up to you. And they’re not going to survive,” Costello said.
Insurance costs are also catching up on carriers, said Horn, Costello and fellow panelist U.S. Bank Senior Vice President of Government Transportation Cheryl Garcia.
As the freight recession has extended, the cost of insurance has risen, and it is going to continue to rise, Horn said. “I don’t think that that’s a [cost] bucket that’s going to get smaller any time soon,” she said.
Freight cycles typically last 14 to 15 months, but the current downswing has gone on for double that.
“It’s the worst one I’ve ever seen. I mean, I honestly, I think it’s the length, probably more than anything, is what’s made it so, so difficult,” Werner Enterprises CEO Derek Leathers recently said at another industry conference. “When you’re doing it for three years, it’s hard. There’s only so many holes you can plug, and so I think it’s as bad as I’ve ever seen.”
There have been 17 notable bankruptcies of carriers with more than 250 tractors in the past quarter, Leathers told the Wex OTR Summit in San Antonio on Oct. 2.
Werner, based in Omaha, Neb., ranks No. 18 on the TT for-hire Top 100 and No. 8 among truckload carriers.
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