IN THE NEWS: Freight Market Update with Josh Allen of ITS Logistics | Loaded and Rolling

FreightWaves TV
February 26, 2025
Thomas Wasson

From the Interview: “Without further ado, let's welcome Josh Allen, Chief Commercial Officer at ITS Logistics," Host Thomas Wasson begins. "Josh, absolute pleasure to have you on the show today."

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“You all recently released a freight outlook," Wasson continues. "As we’re looking at the balances, the market recovery, the whole thing—give us some of your early impressions right now...Let’s start with Q4.”

“2024—what’s not to love?” Josh Allen asks with a chuckle. “I mean, it was an absolute dog fight. Soft peak season, inventory corrections, cautious consumer spending—you know, it made for a really, really tough freight market. Fortunately, we bucked the trend. We were up 22% year-over-year and, frankly, that's the power of the right freight mix, the right capacity stack, and strong customer partnerships. From a macro view, there were pockets of strength. I’d say auto, retail, and healthcare had some resilience, but overall the demand was inconsistent.”

“One of the things I'd heard was some of the LMI data, some of the manufacturing data, it looks like it wasn't all across the board,” Wasson interjects.

“Yeah, that’s fair," Allen agrees. "You know, the LMI is showing some improvement, but let's be clear: It's not a straight line recovery. Inventory levels are still in flux. Shippers are right-sizing—they're not restocking—and that's keeping freight demand in check. To me, when all this stuff comes to a head—when the tender rejection market starts to show some activity and carriers start saying ‘No’ to contracted rates—things are going to change."

“As we're moving through Q1 talking about tender rejection rates—you know, we're kind of right around that five or six percent, depending upon how you're looking at it—we've seen a big decline and drop-off when it looked like there were signs of life. How does that translate into the day-to-day? What are some of the things you’re seeing through January and into February? Did you all experience a similar kind of drop off in terms of activity and pricing?” Wasson asks.

“You know, it’s an interesting time,” Allen begins. “Q1 feels like a tight rope act. There might be some prosperity at the other end, but right now it's all about balance. I consider the new administration and what's going on in government today kind of like must-see TV. Shippers are watching, waiting, and holding back decisions until there's more clarity on economic policy, interest rates, and labor markets. To me, the market's not broken—it’s just not thriving yet. It’s kind of a 'wait and see' environment.”

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“You’ve been through multiple freight cycles. Having such a lot of activity in Q1—is this something where folks have maybe forgotten about the seasonal winter doldrums before we start to see spring? Is this kind of stuff that's in line with what you've seen in the past, or is there anything unique that we should take into consideration?” Wasson asks.

“Well, I think that at a macro level, it does have consistencies of years gone by. I feel like a an old fogy in the marketplace now that I've seen so many freight cycles. But it does feel a little bit more like a traditional environment. To me, the curious thing about this one is, if you think about those previous cycles, shippers, carriers, providers are all way smarter than they were 20 years ago—even you know 10 years ago. for that matter and so what I'm curious about is what the end of this Q1/Q2 bid cycle looks like. Because, to me, the message is loud and clear: Traditional ‘You Call, We haul’ freight brokerage alone won't cut it anymore. Customers want efficiency, visibility, and control. That's why our DropFleet and our ContainerAI product and robust capacity stack are winning. And I'm sure others that are making the same investments are winning as well. But I think the customers inside these bids are having far more analysis behind the type of capacity and what's making up the rate corresponding the numbers in the bid. Very, very interesting to see how it plays out, especially if there's a market shift on the back end of this sometime in ’25.”

Watch the full video here or listen to the conversation wherever you get your podcasts.