Tighter Capacity Could Extend Rate Cycle

Lee Klaskow (0:07)

Hi, everyone, this is Lee Klaskow when we're Talking Transports. Welcome to Bloomberg Intelligence Talking Transports podcast. I'm your host, Lee Klaskow, Senior Freight Transportation Logistics and I'll set Bloomberg Intelligence, Bloomberg's in-house research arm. Before we dive in, a quick favor. If you enjoy the podcast, please take a moment to follow, rate, review and share it with your network. It really helps more people discover the show.

Today's episode is a little different. We're taking you on location to Trimble Insight 2026 in San Diego for a panel discussion about the forces reshaping the freight transportation markets. I was joined on stage by Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves and Alex Formoso, Executive VP of Procurement and Supply Chain at Polyglass. The conversation was moderated by Trimble's Martin Schmidt. We covered a lot of ground including whether the freight recovery is sustainable, why tightening trucking capacity could keep rates higher for longer, regulatory changes and the impact of the Supreme Court's Montgomery decision. We also debate the outlook for autonomous trucking and discuss where AI is already creating real value and where the human touch remains irreplaceable.

We even look ahead to 2027 and discuss what carriers and shippers should be doing now to prepare for what's coming next. So let's head to San Diego and the main stage at Trimble Insight 2026

Martin Schmidt (1:24)

San Diego, drink it in. It always goes down smooth. Before this, we heard how AI combined with human ingenuity and CCU is changing transportation. Our panel is going to bring that conversation into the realities leaders are dealing with today. Market uncertainty, rising costs, regulatory change and the pressure to invest in technology while continuing to run the business.

We have three panelists as introduced with very different perspectives, Craig Fuller, Lee Klaskow and Alex Formoso. We only have 30-ish minutes here, so we're going to move quickly. If time permits, we can finish the audition, or we can try to tackle the driver shortage.

Let's start with Craig over here. Craig is the founder and CEO of FreightWaves and brings a broad view of the markets, capacity and technology disruption. He hosts a daily podcast at noon called FreightWaves. Lee Klaskow is a senior transportation and logistics analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence and brings the data and financial perspective on carrier performance and the market outlook. He also hosts a weekly podcast called Talking Transports. Then Alex Formoso is the executive vice president of procurement and supply chain at Polyglass MAPA. Did I get that right? Yes. He's kind of a big deal.

He brings the shipper, manufacturing and procurement perspective and might also start a podcast after this. So let's get to the actual questions here.

So from each of your vantage points, what is hitting transportation organizations in the hardest right now? And what are leaders most at risk of underestimating? Craig, let's start with you.

Craig Fuller (3:09)

Yeah, I mean, this is the most interesting time in trucking. I've been around it, was born in it, been around my whole life. I think it's the most interesting time since deregulation, frankly because the regulators are taking an enormous amount of look at all of the problems. For the last five years, we've suffered, the industry suffered from a safety, security and economic crisis that has created the Great Freight Recession. We're now coming out of it, largely thanks to regulatory pressure and oversight.

And that's creating a whole new playbook on how to respond to those events. Technology and AI are a part of that story, but I think what's more interesting is how the government is actually interfering in some ways or impacting the freight market in ways that they haven't done in, frankly, years.

Martin Schmidt (3:59)

Lee, do you have anything to add to that?

Lee Klaskow (4:01)

Yeah, I think Craig really nailed it on the head. In addition to that, there's obviously the macro backdrop, which is extremely uncertain and inflationary. And I think that is having a really big impact on carriers' ability to remain profitable in this current environment. But with rates going up, as they have, obviously, that has been a great tailwind for them to mitigate those risks and costs.

Martin Schmidt (4:30)

Excellent. And Alex, from your perspective? So from a shipper perspective, we've been struggling a lot with availability of loads. Some in some certain areas of the market and some others lack of abundancy there to be able to find it. Then also the cost. The cost really has skyrocketed for us and it's very difficult to pass the cost down to our customer. They are willing to accept some of it, but it's been a real struggle to pass it down on the shipper side.