When linehaul falls and diesel climbs in the same week, the danger is not the rate — it is the lag between them. National average van linehaul slipped to $2.25 a mile for the week of August 9-15, while the EIA’s national on-highway diesel average jumped 20 cents to $5.454. Your carrier feels the fuel today and gets paid for it on a surcharge calculated from a price two weeks stale. Here is how to read this week’s numbers and turn them into pricing you can defend on the phone.
- Price linehaul using fuel trend, not stale surcharge indices; confirm which EIA week surcharge uses and get it on the rate confirmation.
- Quote linehaul, not all-in; subtract fuel before countering, hold your floor, and reprice standing lanes monthly instead of quarterly.
- Monitor equipment-specific shifts: flatbed is cooling fastest, book further out, and verify lane and fuel indexes weekly to protect margins.
The Numbers That Matter This Week
Per DAT Freight & Analytics data for the week of August 9-15, broker-to-carrier all-in spot averages came in at $2.93 a mile for van (down 2 cents), $3.38 for reefer (essentially flat), and $3.54 for flatbed (down 6 cents). Strip out fuel and the linehaul picture is what you actually negotiate against: van $2.25 (down 3 cents), reefer $2.63 (flat), flatbed $2.72 (down 7 cents).
Load-to-truck ratios still favor the carrier side. Van sat at 10.0, reefer at 18.6, and flatbed at 34.5. Load posts totaled 2.6 million, down 4% week over week, with equipment posts at 172,279, down 2%. The soft week does not change the structural story: DAT’s Dean Croke notes truck posts are down 25-30% year over year while load posts are up 25-27%, which is why all three equipment types are running 34-38% above last year and 25-29% above their nine-year seasonal averages.
Rates are sitting near the top of their nine-year seasonal range. Current rates are high year over year and by historical standards for this time of year.
Dean Croke, industry analyst, DAT Freight & Analytics
Why the Fuel Surcharge on Your Rate Con Is Behind the Pump
DAT’s fuel surcharge calculation for this reporting week used a national on-highway diesel price of $5.348 a gallon — the EIA figure for the week ending August 3. The most recent EIA release put the national average at $5.454, roughly 11 cents higher. That gap is the exact amount a carrier eats per gallon on a load priced off the older index while filling at today’s price.
On a 1,200-mile run at 6.5 miles per gallon, an 11-cent-per-gallon lag is about $20. Not fatal. But when diesel is moving 20 cents in a single week, that same lag becomes $37 and then $70, and it compounds across every load in a rising market. The fix is not to argue about the index — it is to price the linehaul with the trend in mind and to confirm on every rate confirmation which week’s index the surcharge is pegged to.
What to Do With a $2.25 Van Linehaul
- Quote linehaul, not all-in. A broker who offers “$2.90 all-in” on a van load is offering roughly market. A broker who offers $2.90 in a week when diesel jumped is offering below market. Do the subtraction before you answer.
- Hold your floor on van at 10.0. A load-to-truck ratio of 10 means ten posted loads chasing every posted truck. That is not a market where you take the first number. Counter once, with the lane average, every time.
- Verify the surcharge week. Ask which EIA week the fuel surcharge uses and whether it resets Monday. Get the answer in writing on the rate confirmation, not on the phone.
- Reprice standing lanes monthly, not quarterly. With diesel moving 20 cents in a week, a fuel table you set in June is a discount you are giving away in August.
- Watch the forecast, not just the print. DAT iQ’s 35-day RateCast puts mid-September van linehaul at $2.24, reefer at $2.61, and flatbed at $2.65 — roughly 60 cents above year-ago levels. That is a plateau, not a collapse. Price accordingly.
Flatbed Is Cooling Fastest — Adjust Before Your Carrier Feels It
Flatbed loads dropped 6% week over week while trucks only came off 2%, pushing the ratio down from 35.8 to 34.5. A 7-cent linehaul decline is the steepest of the three equipment types, and it tracks with the usual late-August fade in construction and agricultural activity. If you dispatch flatbed, this is the point in the season to start booking a week further out and to stop assuming the number you got in July is still available in September.
Reefer is the steadier hand right now — flat linehaul at $2.63 with a ratio of 18.6, even as produce volume comes off its peak. For a carrier with a reefer that has been running dry freight all summer, this is a reasonable week to point the truck back at temperature-controlled lanes. Cross-check any lane you are considering against DAT’s equipment-specific weekly reports and FleetOwner’s rate coverage before you commit a truck to a market you have not run in months.
What to Do Before Monday
Pull your last twenty booked loads and recalculate each one on linehaul only. If your average linehaul is under $2.25 on van, you are pricing off all-in numbers and letting the fuel surcharge do work it was never designed to do. Then check the fuel index week on your three highest-volume brokers’ rate confirmations, and set a calendar reminder to re-verify the EIA number each Monday afternoon. The market is plateauing at a high level, not falling apart — the operators who lose ground in a plateau are the ones still quoting off numbers from six weeks ago.
