TCI hits 11.6 — what a four-year trucking peak means for your drayage costs

The TCI number and what it signals at your dock door

FTR Transportation Intelligence published their April Trucking Conditions Index at 11.6, the highest point in more than four years. If you run inbound at a Canadian port or manage drayage windows across the 401 corridor, that number tells you something concrete: carrier utilization is climbing, free capacity is shrinking, and spot rates are moving up.

The index measures freight demand relative to carrier supply. A reading above 5 signals stronger demand than supply. At 11.6, you're looking at a market where trucking companies are running fuller, booking further out, and less willing to absorb margin squeeze on spot moves. That translates to higher drayage costs and shorter negotiating windows for importers and freight forwarders who haven't already locked in Q2 and Q3 contracts.

What four-year-high carrier demand means for Port of Montreal inbound

At Port of Montreal, container free time runs five calendar days from vessel discharge. After that, demurrage charges apply. When carrier capacity tightens, drayage providers become more selective about which moves they'll accept on short notice. The implication is immediate: your window to book a truck off the dock shrinks from "call Tuesday, pickup Thursday" to "call Monday for Wednesday pickup or pay a premium."

FENGYE LOGISTICS handles inbound drayage coordination from the terminal weekly. What we're seeing is carriers confirming availability further in advance, requiring firmer commitment windows, and pushing back on sub-48-hour bookings unless the rate reflects the inconvenience. That's not new behavior during peak season, but we're seeing it now in spring. That's the TCI signal in real time.

Fuel cost volatility is still present but smaller

The FTR report notes that fuel costs again acted as a drag on the TCI in April, but significantly less than in March. Bank of Canada tracking on North American petroleum markets shows diesel pricing has stabilized in a band rather than spiking unpredictably. Carriers are still hedging against fuel volatility, but they're no longer making fuel surcharge adjustments weekly. For importers, that means drayage rate cards are more stable month-to-month, even if the baseline rate itself is firming.

The operational win here is straightforward: you can forecast your per-unit drayage cost with better precision now than you could in Q1. That doesn't mean rates are cheaper. It means they're not moving around.

Capacity constraints ripple backward to dock-to-stock timing

When carrier capacity is tight, appointment-based pickup windows become harder to hit. At our Montreal warehouse, we manage dock-to-stock SLAs of 48 hours from carrier release. When drayage is competitive (low TCI), carriers book our dock appointments at will and we can absorb schedule variance. At 11.6, carriers are more disciplined about which time windows they commit to, which means your inbound release timing matters more. Miss the pickup window by 4 hours and you're waiting for the next available slot, not squeezing in same-day.

This cascades downstream. If your PARS (Pre-Arrival Review System) release from the broker arrives at 14:00 and the terminal can't free the container until 15:30, you may miss your 16:00 drayage appointment. You're then in queue for 08:00 next morning, which pushes your warehouse putaway from Friday afternoon to Saturday. Cross-dock cutoffs slip. Weekend labor costs rise. The TCI-driven capacity tightness doesn't care about your consolidation deadline.

What this means for Q2 and Q3 contract negotiations

If you're renegotiating drayage or LTL spot-rate frameworks now, you're negotiating from a weaker position than you were three months ago. TCI at 11.6 means carriers have less urgency to chase volume discounts. Importers who have not locked in volume commitments or rate certainty are now competing for equipment on tighter terms.

The upside: if you do commit to a minimum volume (8 containers per week, for example) and a 90-day locked rate, carriers will still honor it. They're not raising rates mid-contract. But carriers are being more selective about which lanes and customers get "we'll keep it flat" pricing. Zone-skipping and consolidation into fewer, more frequent milkruns is becoming a standard ask from carriers, not an option you negotiate into a discount.

Bonded warehouse utilization and timing pressure

When drayage is constrained, importers often use in-bond cargo handling and sufferance warehouse storage as a buffer. If you can't get your container drayage-picked on Tuesday because carrier slots are full, you hold the container at the terminal under demurrage, or you short-haul it to a bonded warehouse for 24–48 hours, sort it, and drayage it out in a milkrun later in the week. That was economically sensible when spot drayage was cheap and warehouse daily rates were a rounding error. At 11.6 TCI, the math shifts. Demurrage at the port becomes more attractive than extra warehouse days because your drayage rate is now higher and a 48-hour hold at the port is cheaper than moving cargo twice.

The operational lesson for forwarders: when capacity tightens, the order in which you move cargo through the supply chain matters more. Your consolidation schedule, your release timing, and your drayage booking window all become cost levers.

Cross-dock economics and speed-to-delivery pressure

FTR's April reading shows the strongest trucking demand environment since early 2022, a period when last-mile delivery costs and outbound LTL spot rates were elevated. We're not back to 2021–2022 crisis pricing, but carriers are running fuller books. That means outbound LTL and final-mile drayage will also firm up, even if inbound drayage is the first thing to tighten.

Importers who use FENGYE LOGISTICS for cross-dock consolidation and final distribution benefit from the ability to batch outbound shipments. A TCI environment at 11.6 rewards batching. If you move 12 pallets outbound next Tuesday versus 3 pallets Tuesday and 4 Thursday, your per-unit cost on the batched move is lower. Carriers prefer full or near-full LTL moves during tight capacity periods. Shippers who can aggregate demand into fewer, heavier moves get better rates.

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What importers should do now

Lock drayage volumes and rates for the next 90 days if you haven't already. Don't wait for May, when carriers will have even more confirmation of the TCI trend. Clarify your PARS release timing with your customs broker — tight drayage windows punish late releases. If you're using a warehouse as a consolidation point, make sure your dock-to-stock SLA and cross-dock cutoff times are fixed and communicated to all inbound suppliers. When carrier capacity is constrained, surprises cost money.

Most of this is normal logistics discipline. The TCI signal just raises the cost of doing it wrong. We run this timing coordination with importers and brokers every week at our Montreal facility. If your release timing is loose or your drayage window assumptions are outdated, the next 60 days will show you where the friction lives. Learn more about Fengye Warehouse.