Truck shipments show improvement in March

ARLINGTON, Va.

The trucking industry's main trade group said Tuesday a key index measuring U.S. trucking shipments rose by 0.4 percent in March.

Trucking shipment data is often a gauge of overall economic health, because truckers haul more than two-thirds of all U.S. manufactured and retail goods.

The American Trucking Associations' advance seasonally adjusted truck tonnage index decreased 0.3 percent in February. That is a revised figure.

The latest improvement put the index at its highest level since November 2008.

Compared with March 2009, seasonally adjusted tonnage jumped 7.5 percent, which was the fourth consecutive year-over-year gain and the largest increase since January 2005, the trucking group said.

For the first quarter, seasonally adjusted tonnage was up 4.9 percent compared with the same period last year.

The not-seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, was up 19.1 percent in March, compared to the previous month.

The Arlington, Va.-based trucking group's members include FedEx Corp., United Parcel Service Inc., Con-way Inc. and Knight Transportation Inc.

The group's chief economist said he is getting more optimistic about the motor carrier industry's recovery.