Transportation capacity contracted at its second-fastest pace in the 10-year history of the Logistics Managers' Index in July 2026, even as the broader freight market cooled slightly from a seasonally strong June.

The LMI's capacity reading came in at 28.4 for July, a drop of 2.4 percentage points from June and just short of the dataset's record-low reading of 23.8 set in September 2020. Because the index measures expansion and contraction around a midpoint of 50, a reading in the high 20s signals a market where available trucks are scarce relative to demand. Transportation utilization registered 65, down 9.7 points from June but still elevated by historical standards, while transportation pricing came in at 86.9, down 5.5 points but still described in the report as growing at a very robust rate.

SONAR data cited in the report showed the average tender booking lead time reaching 3.74 days in late July, up 11% from a year earlier, as shippers scrambled to secure trucks further in advance. The outbound tender rejection index, a proxy for how much leverage carriers have to turn down loads, most recently read 13.46%, down slightly from a summer peak above 15% but still well above the 5% to 8% range some competing indexes have shown at other points this year.

Public carriers are responding by sweating their existing fleets rather than expanding them. Werner Enterprises reported that revenue per truck per week climbed 28% year over year last quarter after shrinking its one-way fleet by 34%, while Schneider National said it captured double-digit rate increases on contract renewals and is leaning further into the spot market as shippers grow more focused on locking in capacity ahead of peak season.

The overall LMI reading of 68.9 was down slightly from a four-year high in June but remains on pace for the strongest annual reading since the 2021 freight boom.

Source: FreightWaves -- https://www.freightwaves.com/news/transportation-capacity-falls-faster-in-july-rates-remains-high