Fuel Is Still Driving Spot Truckload Rates Even When Volumes Soften

April truckload data delivered a useful warning for freight teams: softer volume does not automatically mean softer rates. Fuel can still do plenty of damage.

According to Logistics Management coverage of the latest DAT Truckload Volume Index, April freight activity was mixed to weaker across key equipment types. The van TVI came in at 251, down 3% from March but still up 2% year over year. Reefer was weaker, with a TVI of 183, down 9% sequentially and up just 1% annually. Flatbed was the exception: its TVI reached 306, up 3% both month over month and year over year.

On a simple demand read, that does not look like a broad freight recovery. Yet rates moved higher anyway. DAT reported that the national average spot van rate rose $0.15 from March to $2.67 per mile. Reefer increased $0.14 to $3.11 per mile. Flatbed jumped $0.37 to $3.46 per mile. Contract rates also rose, with van at $2.85, reefer at $3.22, and flatbed at $3.71 per mile.

That is the kind of divergence that breaks lazy budget models. If a transportation plan assumes lower load counts will quickly translate into lower purchased transportation cost, April is a reminder to rebuild the model.

The fuel component changed the story

The clearest signal in the April data was not demand. It was fuel.

DAT’s linehaul measures, which exclude fuel, moved only modestly for van and reefer. Van linehaul rose $0.05 to $1.96 per mile. Reefer rose $0.04 to $2.40 per mile. Flatbed linehaul increased more meaningfully, up $0.25 to $2.61 per mile, supporting the idea that flatbed had a stronger demand component than the other two modes.

But fuel surcharges were doing heavy lifting. Per-mile surcharges reached their highest levels since July 2022: van hit $0.71, up from $0.61 in March; reefer reached $0.77, up from $0.67; and flatbed moved to $0.85, up from $0.73.

That is why shippers could see rate pressure even where freight volumes were not especially strong. The all-in price moved because cost inputs moved.

The diesel backdrop supports the point. In separate Logistics Management reporting on EIA data, the national diesel average for the week ending May 18 was $5.596 per gallon, down 4.3 cents from the prior week but still extremely elevated. The same report noted diesel was up $2.060 year over year, with WTI crude trading at $107.56 per barrel. It also said the national diesel average had increased by roughly $1.60 since the beginning of the Iran conflict.

One weekly decline does not erase that kind of cost shock. For carriers, elevated diesel changes the floor under acceptable pricing. For shippers, it changes how quickly “soft demand” actually converts into savings.

Why volume and cost indicators need separate dashboards

Many freight teams still blend volume, tender acceptance, spot rates, fuel, and accessorials into one general sense of “the market.” That works when all the signals are moving together. It fails when demand and cost diverge.

April is a textbook case. Van and reefer load volumes softened sequentially, but all-in spot rates rose. The signal from demand was: not much acceleration. The signal from fuel was: cost pressure is still real. Flatbed added a third pattern, where both demand and cost appeared to support higher pricing.

Those distinctions matter in mid-year budget updates. A shipper that sees van volume down 3% and assumes van cost relief is coming may underfund the transportation plan. A forwarder that treats reefer’s 9% sequential TVI decline as a buying opportunity may miss that fuel surcharges still climbed by $0.10 per mile. A flatbed-heavy shipper may need to plan for both demand-driven tightness and fuel-driven cost pressure.

This is also where spot-versus-contract analysis becomes more nuanced. If spot rates are rising mostly because fuel is rising, the procurement response should not be the same as when rates are rising because demand is overwhelming capacity. In one case, the focus is fuel peg design, surcharge pass-through, accessorial discipline, and mode alternatives. In the other, it is capacity commitments, routing-guide depth, and carrier retention.

Treating both as “rates are up” is too blunt.

The carrier-margin question is not simple

High fuel does not hit every carrier the same way. Large contract carriers with efficient fleets and well-structured fuel surcharge programs may be more protected. Smaller spot-market carriers paid on all-in load rates can have a harder time recovering the full increase, especially if brokers and shippers resist passing through the entire surcharge.

That matters because margin pressure becomes a capacity signal. When fuel, insurance, equipment, and compliance costs rise while demand stays uneven, marginal capacity can leave the market even before freight volumes rebound. The result is a strange cycle: demand looks soft, but available capacity still tightens enough to keep prices sticky.

That is bad news for shippers relying on a simple post-downturn playbook. The market does not need a demand boom to become expensive. It only needs enough cost pressure and enough capacity attrition.

What freight teams should do now

The practical move is to separate cost sensing from demand sensing at the lane level.

For each major lane, transportation teams should track:

• Tender volume and tender acceptance separately from all-in paid rate
• Linehaul, fuel surcharge, and accessorials as separate cost fields
• Spot benchmark movement against contract commitments
• Equipment-specific exposure for van, reefer, and flatbed
• Carrier mix by fleet size, fuel program, and capacity reliability
• Exceptions where fuel-driven cost growth is outpacing tender demand

That last point is the money. If a lane’s paid rate is rising while load count is flat or falling, the team needs to know whether the pressure is coming from fuel, accessorial creep, shrinking carrier supply, or actual demand. Those are different problems with different remedies.

CXTMS is built for that kind of operating discipline. A modern transportation management system should not just show that freight spend is up. It should show whether the increase came from fuel surcharge movement, carrier repricing, routing-guide failure, mode mix, accessorial leakage, or demand growth. Without that separation, teams end up negotiating from vibes.

And vibes are expensive.

The April truckload market is not saying freight demand has fully recovered. It is saying transportation cost can rise anyway. For shippers and forwarders planning the rest of 2026, that is the uncomfortable but useful lesson: volume indicators tell you where freight is moving; cost indicators tell you what the network can actually afford.

Turn rate pressure into lane-level control

If fuel volatility and spot-market swings are making your transportation budget harder to read, CXTMS can help. Book a CXTMS demo to see how lane-level visibility, fuel-cost tracking, and execution data help logistics teams separate market noise from actionable cost signals.

Sources: Logistics Management on DAT April truckload rates and Logistics Management on EIA diesel prices.