Competition with railroads, plus extra trucks on the spot market, kept rates in check most of the year, but last week the national van load-to-truck ratio hit 3.7 loads per truck. That's the highest it's been since early January.

The week before Easter tends to wind up early on Friday. Most truckers want get home for the weekend, so they aren’t taking any new loads on Friday. Many are willing to take a lower rate than usual to get home in time for Easter. Some shippers also take Good Friday off. Still, the drop-off in load counts wasn’t nearly as steep as we’ve seen in past years, and in some key markets, volumes were actually up.

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Easter had the same effect on reefer load counts as it did on van volumes. Namely, it led to fewer loads since most load board activity was winding down early Friday. But the rush to get produce in stores contributed to higher rates out of Florida, Fresno, CA, and near the border in Nogales, AZ.

Reefer freight has finally been gaining momentum in the past couple of weeks. There have been lots of reefer roads shipping out of Miami, while Lakeland in the central part of the state joined the Florida parade last week. Overall, produce areas were up, while urban areas were generally down.

Flatbed freight was strong in March, and there was a spike in rates to close the month. Some of that dropped off last week, but flatbed is still looking good. Just look at all the dark spots in the Hot States Map.

If you just look at the national average reefer rate, you’d think things were quiet for reefer last week. But on a market-by-market basis, there were some big swings.

Demand for flatbed trucks continued to climb ahead of schedule. Even California joined the party last week, with higher than normal activity for this time of year.

Reefer trends started to reverse course last week. It wasn't a big jump, but it was good news considering the steady string of declines we had been seeing.

Van load posts on DAT TruckersEdge continued to climb last week, enough to finally put pressure on van rates to rise. The national average van rate was up 4 cents, while 56 of the top 100 van lanes paid better. Thirty lanes paid less, but most of those drops were slight. The rest of the lanes held steady.

Flatbed freight has been strong, especially considering it's only February. Volumes have been climbing steadily for weeks, which is about a month ahead of schedule. The national average flatbed rate has been rising steadily, too, but a lot of individual lanes have been up-and-down recently, depending on weather.