Business logistics costs finally reverting to prepandemic levels, according to annual report
After sluggish demand in 2023, the “35th Annual State of Logistics Report” anticipates tightening of capacity, potential upturn in transportation rates in second half of 2024.
Susan Lacefield has been working for supply chain publications since 1999. Before joining DC VELOCITY, she was an associate editor for Supply Chain Management Review and wrote for Logistics Management magazine. She holds a master's degree in English.
U.S. business logistics costs for 2023 dropped 10% to $2.4 trillion, or 8.7% of last year’s $27.4 trillion gross domestic product (GDP), according to the “2024 State of Logistics Report” released today. The annual report—which is produced by the analyst firm Kearney for the industry association the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)—says this is the first time that costs have declined since the start of the pandemic four years ago.
“This was not unexpected,” said Josh Brogan, Kearney partner and lead author of the report, during the press conference announcing the results. “After the initial impacts of Covid were felt in 2020, we saw a steady rise in logistics costs, even in terms of total GDP. What we are seeing now is a reversion more toward the mean. We are starting to see a reversion in certain [transportation] modes toward prepandemic levels of cost.”
Now in its 35th year, the “State of Logistics Report,” which is sponsored by third-party logistics service provider Penske Logistics, provides a yearly review of the health of primary logistics sectors and of the industry as a whole.
According to Brogan, the biggest drop in costs was seen in asset-heavy transportation sectors, such as air cargo and ocean shipping, driven mostly by rate decreases. While modes such as motor freight have also seen cost decreases due to soft volumes and ample capacity, these reductions were not as large as air and water transport. Additionally, storage costs dropped last year with the market seeing a decline in rents for the first time since the pandemic.
“By and large we are seeing reductions in logistics costs across the board,” summarized Brogan.
Breakdown by mode
The 60-page report, which is free for CSCMP members and $299 for nonmembers, breaks down logistics costs by mode and sector (see chart below) and provides an in-depth analysis of expectations for the coming year.
FIGURE 1: The USBLC decreased 11.2% YoY between 2022 and 2023
Some key insights include:
Motor carriers: Costs decreased 8.6% in 2023, as the downturn in consumer demand, plus a lingering surplus in capacity, led to rates remaining steady and lower than in the past few years.
Parcel: Costs held relatively steady with a slight 0.5% drop. Volume fell for UPS and FedEx, as shippers looked to use more regional and local carriers.
Rail: The largest railroads saw a 2% decline in revenue and an 11% decrease in operating income due to a drop in intermodal volume, higher fuel prices, and greater labor expenses.
Air freight: Costs dropped by 15.4% as passenger traffic returned to normal, bringing online more belly capacity for transporting freight. In addition, some ocean carriers added air freight capacity in effort to broaden their offerings.
Water: Waterborne freight saw sluggish demand and excess capacity. As a result, shippers were able to negotiate better contracts, leading to a 64.2% decrease in costs.
Storage: Demand for new warehouse space has cooled and rents have dropped, causing costs to decline by 13.9%.
Future outlook
Looking ahead, the market will continue to favor shippers over transportation providers for the near term. The report recommends that shippers take advantage of the opportunity to lock in lower rates and diversify their carrier portfolios. The report’s authors do anticipate that capacity will begin to tighten in the second half of the year, resulting in an upturn in rates.
In general, both shippers and providers will have to contend with a muted level of global economic growth. Economists are predicting that the global GDP will grow by 2.5% in 2024, down from 2.7% in 2023. Additionally military conflicts and geopolitical tensions are putting stress on global supply chains, adding costs and friction. As a result, many companies are looking to “rewire” their distribution networks. These redesign efforts are driven not just by cost concerns but also by efforts to enable greater capacity, agility, and flexibility.
"The interesting part of the equation is how much of that is going to be onshoring/nearshoring versus more friendly offshoring," said Brogan. "There isn’t a consensus, there’s a lot of debate about what those strategies mean and obviously that has big implications for overall logistics costs in the long and medium term."
Warehouse automation orders declined by 3% in 2024, according to a February report from market research firm Interact Analysis. The company said the decline was due to economic, political, and market-specific challenges, including persistently high interest rates in many regions and the residual effects of an oversupply of warehouses built during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The research also found that increasing competition from Chinese vendors is expected to drive down prices and slow revenue growth over the report’s forecast period to 2030.
Global macro-economic factors such as high interest rates, political uncertainty around elections, and the Chinese real estate crisis have “significantly impacted sales cycles, slowing the pace of orders,” according to the report.
Despite the decline, analysts said growth is expected to pick up from 2025, which they said they anticipate will mark a year of slow recovery for the sector. Pre-pandemic growth levels are expected to return in 2026, with long-term expansion projected at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% between 2024 and 2030.
The analysis also found two market segments that are bucking the trend: durable manufacturing and food & beverage industries continued to spend on automation during the downturn. Warehouse automation revenues in food & beverage, in particular, were bolstered by cold-chain automation, as well as by large-scale projects from consumer-packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers. The sectors registered the highest growth in warehouse automation revenues between 2022 and 2024, with increases of 11% (durable manufacturing) and 10% (food & beverage), according to the research.
The Swedish supply chain software company Kodiak Hub is expanding into the U.S. market, backed by a $6 million venture capital boost for its supplier relationship management (SRM) platform.
The Stockholm-based company says its move could help U.S. companies build resilient, sustainable supply chains amid growing pressure from regulatory changes, emerging tariffs, and increasing demands for supply chain transparency.
According to the company, its platform gives procurement teams a 360-degree view of supplier risk, resiliency, and performance, helping them to make smarter decisions faster. Kodiak Hub says its artificial intelligence (AI) based tech has helped users to reduce supplier onboarding times by 80%, improve supplier engagement by 90%, achieve 7-10% cost savings on total spend, and save approximately 10 hours per week by automating certain SRM tasks.
The Swedish venture capital firm Oxx had a similar message when it announced in November that it would back Kodiak Hub with new funding. Oxx says that Kodiak Hub is a better tool for chief procurement officers (CPOs) and strategic sourcing managers than existing software platforms like Excel sheets, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, or Procure-to-Pay suites.
“As demand for transparency and fair-trade practices grows, organizations must strengthen their supply chains to protect their reputation, profitability, and long-term trust,” Malin Schmidt, founder & CEO of Kodiak Hub, said in a release. “By embedding AI-driven insights directly into procurement workflows, our platform helps procurement teams anticipate these risks and unlock major opportunities for growth.”
Here's our monthly roundup of some of the charitable works and donations by companies in the material handling and logistics space.
For the sixth consecutive year, dedicated contract carriage and freight management services provider Transervice Logistics Inc. collected books, CDs, DVDs, and magazines for Book Fairies, a nonprofit book donation organization in the New York Tri-State area. Transervice employees broke their own in-house record last year by donating 13 boxes of print and video assets to children in under-resourced communities on Long Island and the five boroughs of New York City.
Logistics real estate investment and development firm Dermody Properties has recognized eight community organizations in markets where it operates with its 2024 Annual Thanksgiving Capstone awards. The organizations, which included food banks and disaster relief agencies, received a combined $85,000 in awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.
Prime Inc. truck driver Dee Sova has donated $5,000 to Harmony House, an organization that provides shelter and support services to domestic violence survivors in Springfield, Missouri. The donation follows Sova's selection as the 2024 recipient of the Trucking Cares Foundation's John Lex Premier Achievement Award, which was accompanied by a $5,000 check to be given in her name to a charity of her choice.
Employees of dedicated contract carrier Lily Transportation donated dog food and supplies to a local animal shelter at a holiday event held at the company's Fort Worth, Texas, location. The event, which benefited City of Saginaw (Texas) Animal Services, was coordinated by "Lily Paws," a dedicated committee within Lily Transportation that focuses on improving the lives of shelter dogs nationwide.
Freight transportation conglomerate Averitt has continued its support of military service members by participating in the "10,000 for the Troops" card collection program organized by radio station New Country 96.3 KSCS in Dallas/Fort Worth. In 2024, Averitt associates collected and shipped more than 18,000 holiday cards to troops overseas. Contributions included cards from 17 different Averitt facilities, primarily in Texas, along with 4,000 cards from the company's corporate office in Cookeville, Tennessee.
Electric vehicle (EV) sales have seen slow and steady growth, as the vehicles continue to gain converts among consumers and delivery fleet operators alike. But a consistent frustration for drivers has been pulling up to a charging station only to find that the charger has been intentionally broken or disabled.
To address that threat, the EV charging solution provider ChargePoint has launched two products to combat charger vandalism.
The first is a cut-resistant charging cable that's designed to deter theft. The cable, which incorporates what the manufacturer calls "novel cut-resistant materials," is substantially more difficult for would-be vandals to cut but is still flexible enough for drivers to maneuver comfortably, the California firm said. ChargePoint intends to make its cut-resistant cables available for all of its commercial and fleet charging stations, and, starting in the middle of the year, will license the cable design to other charging station manufacturers as part of an industrywide effort to combat cable theft and vandalism.
The second product, ChargePoint Protect, is an alarm system that detects charging cable tampering in real time and literally sounds the alarm using the charger's existing speakers, screens, and lighting system. It also sends SMS or email messages to ChargePoint customers notifying them that the system's alarm has been triggered.
ChargePoint says it expects these two new solutions, when combined, will benefit charging station owners by reducing station repair costs associated with vandalism and EV drivers by ensuring they can trust charging stations to work when and where they need them.
New Jersey is home to the most congested freight bottleneck in the country for the seventh straight year, according to research from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), released today.
ATRI’s annual list of the Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks aims to highlight the nation’s most congested highways and help local, state, and federal governments target funding to areas most in need of relief. The data show ways to reduce chokepoints, lower emissions, and drive economic growth, according to the researchers.
The 2025 Top Truck Bottleneck List measures the level of truck-involved congestion at more than 325 locations on the national highway system. The analysis is based on an extensive database of freight truck GPS data and uses several customized software applications and analysis methods, along with terabytes of data from trucking operations, to produce a congestion impact ranking for each location. The bottleneck locations detailed in the latest ATRI list represent the top 100 congested locations, although ATRI continuously monitors more than 325 freight-critical locations, the group said.
For the seventh straight year, the intersection of I-95 and State Route 4 near the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey, is the top freight bottleneck in the country. The remaining top 10 bottlenecks include: Chicago, I-294 at I-290/I-88; Houston, I-45 at I-69/US 59; Atlanta, I-285 at I-85 (North); Nashville: I-24/I-40 at I-440 (East); Atlanta: I-75 at I-285 (North); Los Angeles, SR 60 at SR 57; Cincinnati, I-71 at I-75; Houston, I-10 at I-45; and Atlanta, I-20 at I-285 (West).
ATRI’s analysis, which utilized data from 2024, found that traffic conditions continue to deteriorate from recent years, partly due to work zones resulting from increased infrastructure investment. Average rush hour truck speeds were 34.2 miles per hour (MPH), down 3% from the previous year. Among the top 10 locations, average rush hour truck speeds were 29.7 MPH.
In addition to squandering time and money, these delays also waste fuel—with trucks burning an estimated 6.4 billion gallons of diesel fuel and producing more than 65 million metric tons of additional carbon emissions while stuck in traffic jams, according to ATRI.
On a positive note, ATRI said its analysis helps quantify the value of infrastructure investment, pointing to improvements at Chicago’s Jane Byrne Interchange as an example. Once the number one truck bottleneck in the country for three years in a row, the recently constructed interchange saw rush hour truck speeds improve by nearly 25% after construction was completed, according to the report.
“Delays inflicted on truckers by congestion are the equivalent of 436,000 drivers sitting idle for an entire year,” ATRI President and COO Rebecca Brewster said in a statement announcing the findings. “These metrics are getting worse, but the good news is that states do not need to accept the status quo. Illinois was once home to the top bottleneck in the country, but following a sustained effort to expand capacity, the Jane Byrne Interchange in Chicago no longer ranks in the top 10. This data gives policymakers a road map to reduce chokepoints, lower emissions, and drive economic growth.”