Chart of the Week: Outbound Tender Reject Index – Los Angeles, Chicago SONAR: OTRI.LAX, OTRI.CHI
Truckload carriers are rejecting just over one in every 100 loads offered out of the Los Angeles area, while turning down three out of every 50 loads originating in the Chicago market. This marks a significant shift in carrier prioritization that began in the third quarter of last year. Why is this happening, and what does it mean as the industry heads into what many expect to be a much more volatile trucking environment in 2025?
The Outbound Tender Reject Index (OTRI) measures the percentage of loads that carriers decline via electronic requests from their customers. In the Los Angeles market, the OTRI is near record lows, dropping below 2% for the first time since April 2023. This indicates that carriers are readily available and willing to cover loads for customers with existing long-term rate agreements.
At this time last year, the Los Angeles OTRI stood at 2.62%. While this may seem insignificant to a casual observer, the trend runs counter to the broader U.S. truckload market – particularly in major eastern markets like Chicago.
The national OTRI at the end of February 2024 was 3.99%. It had risen to 5.38% as of Feb. 27, 2025. The difference between these two OTRI figures is not huge in terms of operational discomfort for transportation managers, but it is a large change when looking back at the past three years.
Los Angeles’ rejection rates have been close to the national average for most of the past two years. The Los Angeles market’s OTRI tends to average lower in January and February, but the past two months have seen a much stronger seasonal move than we have seen in the recent past.
The Chicago market has trended in the opposite direction, averaging above the national value at the start of the year.
Winter weather has been a significant factor this year, as it was in January 2024. Extremely low temperatures make truck operations more challenging, while snow and ice in areas lacking the infrastructure to handle them have contributed to tighter-than-average conditions across the Eastern half of the U.S.
This year appears to be an exaggerated version of 2024. Carriers seem to be favoring the West Coast, but weather alone does not fully explain why they would leave their networks unbalanced for an extended period.
Rates for outbound loads from Southern California have faced much more upward pressure over the past year, resulting in higher contract rates and consistently elevated spot rates.
According to SONAR’s TRAC providers, spot rates from Los Angeles to Seattle are up 10% year over year, while contract rates have risen by approximately 2%. Spot rates to Chicago have been much more volatile but are currently more than 30% higher than they were at this time last year.
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Factoring in these rate increases alongside a longer average length of haul, West Coast freight has become a much more financially viable option for carriers.
A heat map showing where spot rates have increased (blue) and decreased (red) over the past few days reveals that rates are rising more frequently in the Eastern half of the U.S. This suggests carriers are less available in the East, particularly in lower-volume markets where freight is not as consistently available.
Carriers are still recovering from a prolonged and extremely challenging operating environment. While transportation managers have adopted new strategies to mitigate their exposure to a tightening market, carriers are also implementing measures to ensure their viability in an increasingly chaotic industry.
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