American ports will gain nearly a half-billion dollars in federal funding “to restore American maritime dominance and revitalize American ports, shipyards and maritime capabilities,” the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said Thursday.
According to DOT, the goal of the grant program is to “modernize America’s ports and strengthen our supply chains, helping reduce time and costs for shippers, and drive down the cost of goods for American families.”
It will be available to the more than 300 U.S. ports operated by states, counties, municipalities, and private corporations, and will support projects that:
Improve ports[‘] ability to load and unload good[s]
Streamline supply chain movements
Modernize ports’ infrastructure and operations
Support America’s vibrant seafood and seafood-related businesses
More specifically, the funding of $488,628,000 will be awarded through the DOT Maritime Administration (MARAD)’s Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP). Most of the money ($450 million) comes from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and a small portion comes from the Congressional spending bill called the FY 2026 Appropriations Act.
To apply for funding, applicants are encouraged to submit eligible projects as soon as possible, but must do so by June 27. Criteria include priorities for projects located in Qualified Opportunity Zones, projects that incorporate innovative technology, and projects that support national multimodal freight goals.
The PIDP program will also allocate at least 25% of the available funding—totaling $122,157,000—for “Small Projects at Small Ports.” Eligible applicants include port authorities, states, local governments, indigenous Tribal nations, counties, and other entities.
It is no secret that trucking is the heart of the nation’s freight system, as most products transported within the United States find their way onto trucks. That’s why DC Velocity is now partnering with U.S. Bank each quarter to present the “U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index Report.”
U.S. Bank is a provider of freight audit and payment services that processes more than $46 billion in freight bills annually. In addition to acting as a financial intermediary, the company offers data analytics through the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index, which measures quantitative changes in freight shipments and spend activity based on data from transactions processed through the U.S. Bank Freight Payment platform. The report generated from these indices provides a quick snapshot into the freight industry, including breakouts of shipping trends throughout America’s regional markets.
The following is a condensed version of the “Q4 2025 U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index Report.” This represents the first is series of reports that will appear on quarterly basis in DC Velocity. The full U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index is available at freight.usbank.com.
National freight market overview
The “Q4 2025 U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index Report” shows that the U.S. truck freight market saw a modest improvement in shipment volumes during 2025 (see Exhibit 1), while tightening capacity drove shipper spending to its highest level since early 2024. National shipments rose 1.5% from the previous quarter, while spending jumped 4.6%.
According to the U.S. Bank National Shipments Index, demand remained subdued throughout the fourth quarter of 2025. During this period, manufacturing output showed no month-over-month growth for the last four consecutive months of 2025, and in December the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Manufacturing Index hit its lowest level since October 2024. Meanwhile retail sales growth for 2025 through October was only minimally above the increase in inflation over the past year.
“Freight market conditions remained challenging in Q4, with manufacturing, construction, and consumer spending all showing strain,” said Bob Costello, senior vice president and chief economist at the American Trucking Associations. “The capacity adjustments we’re seeing across the industry are a natural response to these prolonged demand headwinds.”
Indeed prolonged market downturns over the last few years led to reduced rates, which prompted carriers to downsize fleets and decrease the number of independent contractors. This year also saw a decrease in the total number of carriers operating. At the same time, stricter government regulations, including tougher English Language Proficiency standards, and stricter enforcement of those regulations removed thousands of drivers from service. The Department of Transportation (DOT) also temporarily paused the issuance of nondomiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) to certain noncitizens and nonpermanent residents until full compliance with new DOT regulations was achieved. This rule potentially affected nearly 194,000 CDL holders, although a court case has suspended its implementation for now. There have also been cases of foreign drivers operating without proper work authorization, though new measures are expected to curb such occurrences.
This overall tightening of industry capacity in Q4 resulted in an increase in shipping costs, despite a smaller-than-usual peak-season volume lift. Spot market rates climbed quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, highlighting tighter capacity across the freight sector.
“The capacity story is the defining theme of Q4. Shippers paid significantly more to move slightly more freight—clear evidence that available truck capacity continues to tighten,” said Bobby Holland, U.S. Bank director of freight business analytics. “Between fleet exits and carriers reducing their rosters, the industry is feeling the effects of prolonged contraction.”
Freight spot, contract, and fuel rates
The U.S. Bank data is supported by findings from DAT Freight & Analytics (see Exhibit 2). The freight analytics and technology firm says that rates increased during the final quarter of 2025. Specifically, spot market rates—which typically precede changes in contract rates—rose by an average of 10 cents per mile, representing a 4.8% increase over the third quarter. Over the second half of the year, spot rates advanced by 6.2% relative to the second quarter. Contract rates also posted sequential growth for the last two quarters of the year, albeit at a more moderate rate of 1.4%. In the third quarter, contract rates increased by 1.1%.
On a year-over-year basis, both rate categories registered gains. Spot rates experienced the largest rise, up 5.1%, substantially higher than the 1.4% annual gain observed in the third quarter. Contract rates increased by 2.9% compared to the final quarter of 2024, exceeding the 0.7% improvement seen in the prior quarter.Shippers benefited from a slight reduction in fuel expenditures relative to the third quarter, with average outlays declining by one cent per mile or 2.9%. However, fuel costs were 7.2% higher compared to the same period one year earlier.
Regional shipments and spending
Regional data from U.S. Bank shows that trucking capacity tightened in most parts of the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 2025, with mixed results in freight shipment volumes, as some regions saw gains while others were flat or declining.Despite uneven shipment volumes, fourth quarter spending rose nearly everywhere, driven mainly by higher freight rates. This rate increase was evident because shippers in regions with declining freight still had to pay more to transport less, while regions with rising freight volumes experienced even greater spending hikes. Because diesel prices held steady or decreased from the third quarter, fuel surcharges were not behind the rise in total costs, leaving shrinking capacity as the explanation for price increases. When compared to the same period in the previous year, only the Southeast region showed a reduction in spending.
West regional shipments and spending
In the last quarter of 2025, shipments in the West experienced a slight drop, with the West Regional Shipments Index falling by 1.3% compared to the previous quarter. Freight levels remained 5.4% higher than the same time a year ago.
Early reports suggest that seaport and land port volumes dipped slightly from the third quarter and may have decreased compared to last year as well. The Port of Los Angeles reported that trade policy uncertainty led to lower volumes in November and only a minor increase in October over the previous year. Truck traffic at land ports for October and November was 2.9% below the average recorded in the third quarter.
Additionally, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book—officially titled “Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions”—highlighted weaker retail activity in the region from October through mid-November, along with subdued manufacturing and residential construction.
Despite this quarterly setback, 2025 was a strong year overall for freight in the West, with the annual average up 3.2% compared to 2024. While that may not seem like a huge increase, it is significant considering freight volumes dropped more than 16% in both 2023 and 2024. Changes in tariff-related trade policies in 2025 helped boost import volumes and drive freight higher.
During the fourth quarter, the West Regional Spend Index was up 2.6% from the third quarter. Spend was also up 9.4% from a year earlier, the fourth straight quarter that saw a year-over-year gain and the largest gain since the third quarter of 2022. Although spend increased by a small amount in 2025, it is still below pandemic boom levels.
Southwest regional shipments and spending
Freight activity in the Southwest region remained unpredictable during the fourth quarter. After dropping 15.7% in the third quarter, the Southwest Regional Shipment Index bounced back with a 5.4% gain, yet still ended the year 25.4% lower than the previous year. Overall, 2025 was particularly challenging for freight in this area: The annual shipment average fell 31.6% compared to 2024, marking the steepest decline among all five regions.
Although freight levels recovered from the third quarter, cross-border movement dipped slightly, dropping 0.8% from the quarterly average. Inbound truck traffic from Mexico for October and November also decreased by 1.3% versus figures for the same period last year. According to the latest Federal Reserve Beige Book, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported falling retail sales early in the quarter, likely affecting freight volumes in the region.
Despite these soft freight volumes, shipping costs surged because of tighter capacity. In the fourth quarter, the Southwest Regional Spend Index increased by 12.6% from the prior quarter and 16.8% over the same period last year. This trend was evident throughout the year, with the annual average spending index rising 7.5% above the 2024 average, even though shipped volumes declined sharply. Stricter English language proficiency requirements for commercial truck drivers most likely played a role in tightening capacity and pushing rates higher throughout the region.
Midwest regional shipments and spending
The Midwest Regional Shipments Index increased by 3.5% during the final quarter of 2025, following a 2.2% decline in the third quarter. This improvement is notable given that inbound freight from Canada—a key indicator of regional manufacturing activity due to its role as a supplier for U.S. factories—experienced a slight decrease of 1.3% in October and November.
Similarly, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland reported a minor decline in demand for manufactured goods early in the quarter, continuing a trend from the previous reporting period. In contrast, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago observed some improvement in general goods activity within its region during October and early November, with modest increases in construction, manufacturing, and consumer spending supporting truck freight volumes.
On a year-over-year basis, truck freight volumes in the Midwest were down 3.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. However, this represented the strongest performance among all quarters in 2025.
The Midwest Regional Spend Index rose by 5% from the third quarter, slightly outperforming volume growth and indicating modest rate improvements. Compared to the same period in 2024, shipper spending remained essentially flat, increasing just 0.1%.
Northeast regional shipments and spending
The Northeast stood out as the top region for both shipments and spending in the fourth quarter, from a motor carrier’s viewpoint. The region was unique in posting both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year increases in these areas. The Northeast Regional Shipments Index rose by 4.2% compared to the previous quarter, marking a fourth straight quarterly gain.
Manufacturing activity picked up modestly early in the quarter, especially in New York State and New England but was somewhat weaker in central and eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. As was the case across the U.S., lower- and middle-income households in the Northeast spent less in the early part of the quarter, though higher income households helped offset this trend.
Shippers saw increased costs in the region due to higher freight volumes combined with modest rate hikes. The Northeast Regional Spend Index climbed 5.5% in Q4 compared to Q3 and 16.7% from a year ago.
Southeast regional shipments and spending
Besides the West, the Southeast was the only region to see consecutive shipment declines in the fourth quarter, with freight volumes falling 2.4%. Over Q3 and Q4, the total decline was 4.4%. The federal government shutdown likely affected the region’s northern parts, where a high number of government employees cut back on spending.
The Federal Reserve noted in the first six weeks of the quarter that consumer confidence was down, impacting larger purchases. Manufacturing contacts also reported reduced new orders amid tariff uncertainty. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta observed that middle- and lower-income households were more cautious with discretionary spending, while higher-income groups maintained their habits.
Year-over-year, the Southeast Regional Shipments Index dropped 5.9%—the second-largest decline among the five regions, behind the Southwest’s 25.4% decrease. Still, this was an improvement from the 9.1% contraction in 2024.
While the Southeast posted a marginal 0.7% increase in spending compared to the third quarter—the smallest growth among all regions—it also registered the lowest gain for the second half of the year at 2.3%. The Midwest followed with a 3.6% increase, while both the Southwest and West regions reported double-digit gains in the latter half of 2025.
National/regional macroview key takeaways
Industry capacity continued to shrink in Q4 2025, driven by carrier exits, regulatory changes, and stricter driver requirements. While shipment volumes improved slightly, shippers faced higher costs as fewer drivers and smaller fleets strained available capacity.
Freight volumes rebounded from Q3 2025’s contraction but remained well below historical norms. Shipper spending rose for the third straight quarter, outpacing volume growth as tighter capacity pushed rates higher.
Capacity constraints and rate increases drove up costs across most regions, even where shipment volumes were flat or declining. The Northeast and Southwest stood out for their contrasting trends, with the Northeast seeing robust gains and the Southwest facing steep year-over-year declines.
Regional microview key takeways
West: Freight volumes dipped slightly, impacted by softer port activity and cautious consumer spending. However, annual shipment levels improved, supported by changes in trade policy and a rebound in imports. Shipper spending continued to climb but remains below pandemic highs.
Southwest: Saw a brief recovery in shipments after a sharp Q3 2025 drop, but volumes ended the year far below 2024 levels. Tightened capacity—driven by regulatory changes and labor challenges—pushed shipping costs up sharply, even as cross-border activity softened.
Midwest: Shipments improved in Q4 2025, supported by modest gains in manufacturing and construction. However, inbound freight from Canada and overall consumer demand remained subdued, keeping annual volumes below last year. Shipper spending edged up, reflecting modest rate increases.
Northeast: Led the nation with consecutive quarterly and annual increases in both shipments and spending. Manufacturing growth and resilient consumer activity, especially among higher-income households, helped drive gains, despite pockets of weakness in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Southeast: Freight volumes declined for the second straight quarter, affected by reduced consumer confidence, tariff uncertainty, and cautious spending among middle- and lower-income households. Shipper spending rose only slightly, reflecting the region’s muted demand and rate environment.
In his 40 years leading McLeod Software, one of the nation’s largest providers of transportation management systems for truckers and 3PLs (third-party logistics providers), Tom McLeod has seen many a new technology product introduced with much hype and promise, only to fade in real-world practice and fail to mature into a productive application.
In his view, as new tech players have come and gone, the basic demand from shippers and trucking operators for technology has remained pretty much the same, straightforwardly simple and unchanged over time: “Find me a way to use computers and software to get more done in less time and [at a] lower cost,” he says.
“It’s been the same goal, from decades ago when we replaced typewriters, all the way to today finding ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to automate more tasks, streamline processes, and make the human worker more efficient,” he adds. “Get more done in less time. Make people more productive.”
The difference between now and the pretenders of the past? McLeod and others believe that AI is the real thing and, as it continues to develop and mature, will be incorporated deeper into every transportation and logistics planning, execution, and supply chain process, fundamentally changing and forcing a reinvention of how shippers and logistics service providers operate and manage the supply chain function.
“But it is not a magic bullet you can easily switch on,” McLeod cautions. “While the capabilities look magical, at some level it takes time to train these models and get them using data properly and then come back with recommendations or actions that can be relied upon,” he adds.
THE DATA CONUNDRUM
One of the challenges is that so much supply chain data today remains highly unstructured—by one estimate, as much as 75%. Converting and consolidating myriad sources and formats of data, and ensuring it is clean, complete, and accurate remains perhaps the biggest challenge to accelerated AI adoption.
Often today when a broker is searching for a truck, entering an order, quoting a load, or pulling a status update, someone is interpreting that text or email, extracting information from the transportation management system (TMS), and creating a response to the customer, explains Doug Schrier, McLeod’s vice president of growth and special projects. “With AI, what we can do is interpret what the email is asking for, extract that, overlay the TMS information, and use AI to respond to the customer in an automated fashion,” he says.
To come up with a price quote using traditional methods might take three or four minutes, he’s observed. An AI-enabled process cuts that down to five seconds. Similarly, entering an order into a system might take four to five minutes. With AI interpreting the email string and other inputs, a response is produced in a minute or less. “So if you are doing [that task] hundreds of times a week, it makes a difference. What you want to do is get the human adding the value and [use AI] to get the mundane out of the workflow.”
Yet the growth of AI is happening across a technology landscape that remains fragmented, with some solutions that fit part of the problem, and others that overlap or conflict. Today it’s still a market where there is not one single tech provider that can be all things to all users.
In McLeod’s view, its job is to focus on the mission of providing a highly functional primary TMS platform—and then complement and enhance that with partners who provide a specialized piece of an ever-growing solution puzzle. “We currently have built, over the past three decades, 150 deep partnerships, which equates to about 250 integrations,” says Ahmed Ebrahim, McLeod’s vice president of strategic alliances. “Customers want us to focus on our core competencies and work with best-of-breed parties to give them better choices [and a deeper solution set] as their needs evolve,” he adds.
One example of such a best-of-breed partnership is McLeod’s arrangement with Qued, an AI-powered application developer that provides McLeod TMS clients with connectivity and process automation for every load appointment scheduling mode, whether through a portal, email, voice, or text.
Before Qued was integrated, there were about 18 steps a user had to complete to get an appointment back into the TMS, notes Tom Curee, Qued’s president. With Qued, those steps are reduced to virtually zero and require no human intervention.
As soon as a stop is entered into the TMS, it is immediately and automatically routed to Qued, which reaches out to the scheduling platform or location, secures the appointment, and returns an update into the TMS with the details. It eliminates manual appointment-making tasks like logging on and entering data into a portal, and rekeying or emailing, and it significantly enhances the value and efficiency of this particular workflow activity for McLeod users.
LEGACY SYSTEM PAIN
One of the effects of the three-year freight recession has been its impact on investment. Whereas in better times, logistics and trucking firms would focus on buying tech to reduce costs, enhance productivity, and improve customer service, the constant financial pressure has narrowed that focus.
“First and exclusively, it is now on ‘How do we create efficiency by replacing people and really bring cost levels down because rates are still extremely low and margins really tight,’” says Bart De Muynck, a former Gartner research analyst covering the visibility and supply chain tech space, and now principal at consulting firm Bart De Muynck LLC.
Most industry operators he’s spoken with have looked at AI. One example he cites as ripe for transformation is freight brokerages, “where you have rows and rows of people on the phone.” They are asking the question “Which of these processes or activities can we do with AI?”
Yet De Muynck points to one issue that is proving to be a roadblock to change and transformation. “For many of these companies, their foundational technology is still on older architectural platforms,’’ in some cases proprietary ones, he notes. “It’s hard to combine AI with those.” And because of years of low margins and cash flow restrictions, “they have not been able to replace their core ERP [enterprise resource planning system] or the TMS for that carrier or broker, so they are still running on very old tech.”
For those players, De Muynck says they will discover a disconcerting reality: the difficulty of trying to apply AI on a platform that is decades old. “That will yield some efficiencies, but those will be short term and limited in terms of replacing manual tasks,” he says.
The larger question, De Muynck says, is “How do you reinvent your company to become more successful? How do we create applications and processes that are based on the new architecture so there is a big [transformative] lift and shift [and so we can implement and deploy foundational pieces fairly quickly]? Then with those solutions build something with AI that is truly transformational and effective.” And, he adds, bring the workforce along successfully in the process.
“People have some things in their jobs they have to do 100 times a day,” often a menial or boring task, De Muynck adds. “AI can automate or streamline those tasks in such a way that it improves the employee’s work experience and job satisfaction, while driving efficiencies. [Rather than eliminate a position], brokers can redirect worker time to more higher-value, complex tasks that need human input, intuition, and leadership.”
“With logistics, you cannot take people completely out of the equation,” he emphasizes. “[The best AI solutions] will be a human paired up with an intelligent AI agent. It will be a combination of people [and their tribal knowledge and institutional experience] and technology,” he predicts.
EYES OPEN
Shippers, truckers, and 3PLs are experiencing an awakening around the possibilities of technologies today and what modern architecture, in-the-cloud platforms, and AI-powered agents can do, says Ann Marie Jonkman, vice president–industry advisory for software firm Blue Yonder. For many, the hardest decision is where to start. It can be overwhelming, particularly in a market environment shaped by chaos, uncertainty, and disruption, where surviving every week sometimes seems a challenge in itself.
“First understand and be clear about what you want to achieve and the problems you want to solve” with a tech strategy, she advises. “Pick two or three issues and develop clear, defined use cases for each. Look at the biggest disruptions—where are the leakages occurring and how do I start?”
Among the most frequently targeted areas of investment she sees are companies putting capital and resources into broad areas of automation, not just physical activity with robotics, but in business processes, workflows, and operations. It also is about being able to understand tradeoffs, getting ahead of and removing waste, and moving the organization from a reactionary posture to one that’s more proactive and informed, and can leverage what Jonkman calls “decision velocity.” That places a priority on not only connecting the silos, but also on incorporating clean, accurate, and actionable data into one command center or control tower. When built and deployed correctly, such central platforms can provide near-immediate visibility into supply chain health as well as more efficient and accurate management of the end-to-end process.
Those investments in supply chain orchestration not only accelerate and improve decision-making around stock levels, fulfillment, shipping choices, and overall network and partner performance, but also provide the ability to “respond to disruption and get a handle on the data to monitor and predict disruption,” Jonkman adds. It’s tying together the nodes and flows of the supply chain so “fulfillment has the order ready at the right place and the right time [with the right service]” to reduce detention and ensure customer expectations are met.
It is important for companies not to sit on the sidelines, she advises. Get into the technology transformation game in some form. “Just start somewhere,” even if it is a small project, learn and adapt, and then go from there. “It does not need to be perfect. Perfection can be the enemy of success.”
The speed of technology innovation always has been rapid, and the advent of AI and automation is accelerating that even further, observes Jason Brenner, senior vice president of digital portfolio at FedEx. “We see that as an opportunity, rather than a challenge.”
He believes one of the industry’s biggest challenges is turning innovation into adoption, “ensuring new capabilities integrate smoothly into existing operations and deliver value quickly.” Brenner adds that in his view, “innovation is healthy and pushes everyone forward.”
Execution at scale is where the rubber meets the road. “Delivering technology that works reliably across millions of shipments, geographies, and constantly changing conditions requires deep operational integration, massive data sets, and the ability to test solutions in multiple environments,” he says. “That’s where FedEx is uniquely positioned.”
DEFYING AUTOMATION NO MORE
Before the arrival of the newest forms of AI, “there were shipping tasks that had defied automation for decades,” notes Mark Albrecht, vice president of artificial intelligence for freight broker and 3PL C.H. Robinson. “Humans had to do this repetitive, time-consuming—I might even say mind-numbing—yet essential work.”
Application of early forms of AI, such as machine learning tools and algorithms, provided a hint of what was to come. CHR, which has one of the largest in-house IT development groups in the industry, has been using those for a decade.
Large language models and generative AI were the next big leap. “It’s the advent of agentic AI that opens up new possibilities and holds the greatest potential for transformation in the coming year,” Albrecht says, adding, “Agentic AI doesn’t just analyze or generate content; it acts autonomously to achieve goals like a human would. It can apply reasoning and make decisions.”
CHR has built and deployed more than 30 AI agents, Albrecht says. Collectively, they have performed millions of once-manual tasks—and generated significant benefits. “Take email pricing requests. We get over 10,000 of those a day, and people used to open each one, read it, get a quote from our dynamic pricing engine, and send that back to the customer,” he notes. “Now a proprietary AI agent does that—in 32 seconds.”
Another example is load tenders. “It used to take our people upwards of four hours to get to those through a long queue of emails,” he recalls. That work is now done by an AI agent that reads the email subject line, body, and attachments; collects other needed information; and “turns it into an order in our system in 90 seconds,” Albrecht says. He adds that if the email is for 20 orders, “the agent can handle them simultaneously in the same 90 seconds,” whereas a human would have to handle them sequentially.
Time is money for the shipper at every step of the logistics process. So the faster a rate quote is provided, order created, carrier selected, and load appointment scheduled, the greater the benefits to the shipper. “It’s all about speed to market, which whether a retailer or manufacturer, often translates into if you make the sale or keep an assembly line rolling.”
LOOKING AHEAD
Strip away all the hype, and the one tech deliverable that remains table stakes for all logistics providers and their customers are platforms that provide a timely and accurate view into where goods are and with whom, and when they will get to their destination. “First and foremost is real-time visibility that enables customer access to the movement of their product across the supply chain,” says Penske Executive Vice President Mike Medeiros. “Then, getting further upstream and allowing them to be more agile and responsive to disruptions.”
As for AI, “it’s not about replacing [workers]; it’s about pointing them in the right direction and helping [them] get more done in the same amount of time, with a higher level of service and enabling a more satisfying work experience. It’s human capital complemented by AI-powered agents as virtual assistants. We’ve already [started] down that path.”
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Building powerful physical AI models requires diverse, controllable, and physically-grounded data at scale. Collecting large-scale, diverse real-world datasets for training can be expensive, time-intensive, and dangerous. NVIDIA Cosmos open world foundation models (WFMs) address these challenges by enabling scalable, high-fidelity synthetic data generation for physical AI and the augmentation of…
While the total number of supply chain crime incidents remained relatively stable in 2025, estimated losses surged 60% to nearly $725 million as organized criminal groups increasingly focused on high value shipments, according to CargoNet.
By the raw numbers, CargoNet recorded 3,594 supply chain crime events across the United States and Canada in 2025, essentially unchanged from the 3,607 events reported in 2024. However, incidents involving confirmed cargo theft rose sharply, increasing 18% year-over-year from 2,243 to 2,646.
Sorted by targeted commodities, food and beverage products experienced the largest increase, with 708 thefts, a 47% jump from 2024. And metal theft rose 77%, driven by ongoing demand for copper products.
Meanwhile, theft of consumer-grade electronics such as televisions and personal computers declined. In contrast, criminals increasingly targeted enterprise computer components and cryptocurrency mining hardware. Another hot target was vehicle-related products—including tires, auto parts, and motor oils—with a notable focus on engines and components bound for domestic vehicle assembly plants.
Looking into the new year, CargoNet expects continued targeting of high-value technology products in 2026, particularly RAM modules, storage drives, and enterprise computing equipment. Theft by deception groups are anticipated to increase their focus on misdirecting shipments tendered to legitimate carriers, sidestepping compliance controls that have traditionally centered on the tendering process itself.
Another factor that could increase cargo theft is the White House’s rising focus on nondomiciled CDL enforcement, CargoNet said. That’s because many complex cargo theft schemes rely on acquiring existing motor carriers with strong load histories. Increased enforcement may now reduce available capacity and expand the pool of carriers for sale, potentially creating new opportunities for criminal enterprises to establish fraudulent operations.
“Criminal enterprises are becoming more selective and sophisticated, targeting extremely high value shipments rather than relying on opportunistic theft,” Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at Verisk CargoNet, said in a release. “This strategic shift explains how losses can rise 60 percent even as overall incident volume holds steady.”
According to DSV, the facility's location in Mesa, Arizona, provides close access to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, major transportation routes, and proximity to key semiconductor manufacturers, enhancing DSV's ability to serve semiconductor, consumer products, technology, and other industries in the region with specialized logistics solutions.
The consolidation of DSV's operations into this single location offers clients concentrated expertise and improved efficiency through a wide range of transport and logistics services under one roof. When completed in early 2027, it will serve as the company's key logistics hub for the southwestern United States.
Managing logistics operations in-house is often the easiest way to ensure that your supply chain feels like an extension of your brand. But that level of control and quality is hard to sustain as a company expands: More volume means more complexity, and many growing companies find themselves looking for alternative, cost-effective solutions to manage that growth.
That’s exactly the position leaders at Pacific Cheese found themselves in recently. By 2025, the family-owned natural cheese company had seen its footprint expand from California to an international network of suppliers and customers, including three domestic production facilities. The company supplies cheese products for major retail brands as well as some of the country’s largest fast-food chains.
Company leaders needed a better way to manage their supply chain as they scaled operations—so they turned to third-party logistics services provider (3PL) ITS Logistics for help.
“When you’re small, you can build it yourself. When you’re really large, you can buy a TMS [transportation management system], hire analysts, and pay for market intelligence,” Brandon Smith, vice president of operations at Pacific Cheese, said in a case study describing the companies’ partnership. “Pacific Cheese was caught in the middle of these two extremes. We’d grown too large and complex to self-manage in a cost-efficient way, but not large enough to justify the cost of all the people and tech to keep doing it in house. With ITS, we get all the benefits but only pay for what we use in technology, management, and thought leadership.”
Today, Pacific Cheese utilizes a fully managed logistics solution from ITS.
SOPHISTICATION AT SCALE
ITS crafted a solution that gives Pacific Cheese “enterprise-level sophistication at scale,” leaders from both companies explain. The program includes a dedicated managed transportation team, implementation of a customized transportation management system (TMS), and a fully managed RFP (request for proposal) process that expanded Pacific Cheese’s carrier network while optimizing network utilization and enhancing its fraud prevention capabilities.
“Mid-market shippers have to work much harder to be cost-efficient than enterprises do, especially when it comes to logistics,” Jameson Goforth, vice president of final mile and managed solutions at ITS Logistics, said in the case study. “Our goal for Pacific Cheese was to help it adopt a technical, strategic, and operational approach that ensures it’s ready to meet the challenges of rising costs and market uncertainty, changing the mindset from: How do we move this load today?to How can we increase the efficiency of our supply chain?”
RESULTS THAT MEASURE UP
Since partnering with ITS, Pacific Cheese has achieved measurable improvements across its supply chain operations, including:
A 13% overall transportation cost reduction with month-over-month savings growth;
19% lane-specific savings achieved by redesigning routes for optimal utilization;
A 20% reduction in LTL (less-than-truckload) spend through improved network efficiency and consolidation;
The ability to pass cost savings along to customers—either directly or by way of finished-goods pricing;
Increased visibility and communication via integrated TMS and real-time shipment tracking;
An enhanced carrier procurement process and access to industry-leading carrier vetting technology from tech providers like GenLogs, DAT, and Highway.
“We embarked on a pretty ambitious path together—ITS integrating new elements of its service line and Pacific Cheese entrusting its logistics operations to a managed service provider after 50 years of managing them ourselves,” Smith said in the case study. “My team has a very high bar for compliments, and they continually highlight how responsive, action-oriented, and accountable ITS is. They’ve become an integral part of our team.”
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