William B. Cassidy | Feb 24, 2010 3:54PM EST
Canadian trucking costs appear to be stabilizing, but at a level nearly 10 percent lower than a year ago, according to an index based on less-than-truckload and truckload rates.
Overall freight costs rose 0.2 percent in December from the previous month, said the Canadian General Freight Index published by Nulogx, a transportation management company that processes more than $750 million in freight transactions a year.
Base trucking rates, which exclude the impact of fuel surcharges, fell by 0.1 percent in December, the index said. That decrease was outstripped by a 3.7 percent rise in the average fuel surcharge compared with November.
Year-over-year, freight costs were down 9.6 percent for Canadian shippers in December. Base rates declined 7.8 percent from a year ago, their steepest drop in 2009. The average fuel surcharge was 13.1 percent lower than in December 2008.
"December's stabilization has been consistent since September of 2009 with freight costs having varied by only 0.4 percent in total," Scott Irvine, vice president of business development at Nulogx, said in a statement.
"Freight costs appear to be stabilizing as we move forward into 2010."
Contact William B. Cassidy at wcassidy@joc.com.