Chart of the Week: Outbound Tender Reject Index, Outbound Tender Volume Index – USA SONAR: OTVI.USA, OTRI.USA
Requests for truckload capacity (OTVI) are down roughly 16% from their peak levels in September of last year. However, carriers are rejecting these requests at a higher rate — national rejection rates reached 5.7% last week, compared to 4.3% in early September. This suggests that the balance between supply (capacity) and demand is the closest it has been to equilibrium in the truckload market since 2022.
The Outbound Tender Reject Index (OTRI) measures the percentage of requests from shippers that truckload carriers turn down. Carriers generally avoid rejecting loads frequently, as doing so means turning away business. For this reason, rejection rates tend to remain relatively low.
The pandemic years of 2020-2021 were among the most challenging periods for securing transportation capacity. Between July 2020 and January 2022, the OTRI averaged above 23%, meaning carriers rejected nearly one out of every four loads due to insufficient availability.
Following this historically high period, the OTRI entered the opposite environment, averaging just 4.3% from July 2022 through last September — equivalent to about one out of every 25 loads being rejected.
Beginning in May 2023, the OTRI showed a slow but steady upward trend, coinciding with the market bottoming out in terms of oversupply. This period marked one of the easiest sourcing environments in recent history. However, last October, the OTRI’s upward movement accelerated. From May 2023 to September 2024, the OTRI rose from approximately 2.9% to 4.4%, averaging an increase of 8.8 basis points per month. Since late September, the OTRI has surged to 5.69%, rising at a rate of 25.5 bps per month — despite January and February typically being the slowest months of the year.
Some argue that the holidays and winter weather have inflated the OTRI, making these comparisons less meaningful. While this point has merit, it is important to note that tender volumes have declined significantly during this same period, which weakens that argument. Most of the holiday influence should have been flushed out at this point.
Last week’s chart of the week article highlighted the fact that carriers appear to be prioritizing loads coming off the West Coast in lieu of some of the Eastern markets, even in very well publicized markets with strong growth like Laredo, Texas.
In reality, carriers have consistently prioritized loads that offer the best financial and operational benefits throughout the downturn. However, this trend is now becoming more apparent as capacity tightens.
