Do you ever wonder how many customers are truly out there? If you know your market at all, you probably have a pretty good idea. You know your top buyers, your region’s largest carriers, deepest-pocketed municipalities and the owner-operators who lean on your company the most.
But you don’t know everyone. You can’t. No one does. That’s where Mapping the Market comes in.
As our newest recurring educational series, Mapping the Market will leverage active carrier and owner-operator data from RigDig (Fusable sister company of TPS) to show how the American truck fleet is evolving on a quarterly basis.
Beginning with today’s report, each Mapping the Market feature will unveil real-time changes in nation’s fleet size, highlighting states experiencing the largest fluctuations in equipment registrations with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Eventually, we believe the series also will develop the ability to identify regional and national changes to fleet capacity and spot market escalations and contractions at their genesis, preparing readers for possible shifts to their profitability.
In our inaugural report, we compare RigDig data sets from the end of the second and third quarters to show changes to the American truck fleet over the summer months.
The U.S. truck fleet might not be growing but the number of active carriers did rise in the third quarter, with 45 states seeing an increase in the number of available prospects for parts and service and dealership operations, per data reported by RigDig on June 30 and Sept. 30.
At the conclusion of the second quarter, RigDig reported 1,404,720 fleet or owner-operator prospects were active in a U.S. state in the prior 24 months. Those operations accounted for at least 2,569,452 verified commercial vehicles and 1,541,683 trailers, with estimated totals for both data sets being more than three times higher.
(For the purpose of Mapping the Market, TPS’s analysis of RigDig data sets will focus exclusively on verified equipment, which have a VIN tied to an inspection, violation or crash within the prior 24 months, as opposed for estimated equipment, which is a self-reported count from carriers previously submitted to the DOT.)
At the conclusion of the third quarter, RigDig’s number of prospects rose 0.5% to 1,412,606, but the total number of verified vehicles and trailers both fell, signifying an overall decrease in fleet utilization in Q3 despite a slight rise of new entrants to the carrier market.
Midwest experiences largest carrier boost
While 90% of states experienced an uptick in active prospects from Q2 to Q3, the strongest growth came in the center of the nation. Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee were among the 11 states where the prospect rate rose by more than 1% quarter over quarter.
The other states where carrier growth surpassed 1% were the smaller population states of Rhode Island (1.66%) Delaware (1.45%) and New Hampshire (1.45%), which saw the largest quarterly increases in the nation, and Virginia (1.1%).
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Conversely, verified equipment growth was almost non-existent except for a few Midwestern states. Illinois, Ohio and Connecticut were the only states where the number of verified vehicles rose, though Indiana and Tennessee were among the states with the smallest reductions in vehicles.
In the trailer space, Connecticut’s addition of seven verified units represented the only state to show quarterly growth.
Larger population states had smaller percentage equipment losses
Slightly more trailers were pulled off American highways than vehicles in the third quarter but both segments saw a reduction of more than 1% of equipment. In the vehicle space, the active population was down 1.19%. In the trailer market it fell by 1.75%.
California and Texas, the states with the highest number of prospects, were among the states with the smallest percentage drops in equipment. California vehicle units were down just 0.75% with trailers off by 0.36%; Texas vehicles fell by 0.41% and trailers were down by 0.82%.
The aforementioned Illinois and Tennessee also fared well in the trailer space, arguably posting the best third quarter in the nation. Illinois trailers were down by only 0.03% (a total of 35 trailers) and Tennessee was off by just 0.30%.
Ultimately, eight states saw their total number of verified vehicles dip by at least 3% while in the trailer space and that number ballooned to 18.
All five states that experienced a reduction in prospects (Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont and Wyoming) also saw a reduction in verified vehicles and equipment in Q3.
Somewhat oddly Arkansas, which was among the states with the largest prospect boom, experienced the largest reduction of verified vehicles in Q3, slipping by more than 5.64%. The Natural State also had the second largest percentage decrease of trailers, dipping by 7.14%, trailing only New Hampshire, which saw its 49th ranked trailer fleet contract by another 9.38%.
Mapping the Market will return in January with a summary of fourth-quarter changes in the carrier and equipment populations. For more advanced prospect and equipment data, including customer information, equipment brand demographics, market segmentation and more, go to RigDig.com.
