How the index is built

Every number on Lane Cost is an estimate of the all-in price a shipper pays to move one full load. This page says exactly what is measured, what is modeled, and where the model is weak.

Coverage: December 2003 – October 2026
Frequency: Monthly
Truck types: 8
Data refreshed: 2026-11-13

What the figures mean

A rate is the all-in price per load: linehaul plus fuel, for a standard full load with no special handling, picked up a few days out. Per-mile figures for the nation and for states are quoted at a 750-mile haul, because per-mile cost falls as distance grows and a single number needs a fixed distance to be comparable.

These are shipper-paid prices of the kind an instant quote returns. They run above the carrier-paid spot averages that load boards publish, because they include the broker's margin and service.

The three parts of the model

1. Level: a cost curve fitted to published lane prices

The dry van price for a lane is a fixed cost per load plus a cost per mile. Both are fitted by regression to all-in 53' dry van prices that a freight broker publishes lane by lane, plus a small sample of live quotes (826 lanes of 100 miles or more, last fitted 2026-11-13). Lanes priced more than 45% from the fitted curve are left out as outliers. Distance is road miles, estimated as the great-circle distance times 1.18.

2. Place: origin and destination adjustments

The same prices give each state an outbound and an inbound adjustment: how much more or less a load costs when it starts or ends there, after distance is accounted for. States with few lanes are pulled toward their region's average. Cities are priced with their state's adjustment and their own distances.

3. Time: public price indexes

History comes from US government series. Each truck type is tied to the index that tracks its market, anchored at October 2026, and follows that index back to December 2003:

53' dry van: BLS PPI, general freight trucking, long-distance truckload (PCU484121484121)
53' refrigerated: USDA AMS Refrigerated Truck Rates and Availability, monthly average of regional $/mile
48' flatbed: BLS PPI, specialized freight trucking, long-distance (PCU484230484230)
Step deck: BLS PPI, specialized freight trucking, long-distance (PCU484230484230)
Power only: BLS PPI, general freight trucking, long-distance truckload (PCU484121484121)
Hotshot: BLS PPI, specialized freight trucking, long-distance (PCU484230484230)
26' box truck: BLS PPI, general freight trucking, local (PCU484110484110)
Sprinter van: BLS PPI, general freight trucking, local (PCU484110484110)

The fuel portion of each estimate is the monthly average US on-highway diesel price from the Energy Information Administration divided by a typical miles-per-gallon figure for the truck.

Truck types other than dry van

Published prices calibrate dry van directly. Other types are set as a ratio to dry van at the anchor month, then follow their own index. Reefer and flatbed ratios reflect the long-run spread between national van, reefer and flatbed averages. Step deck, power only, hotshot, box truck and sprinter van ratios come from operating-cost differences and are the least certain figures in the index.

What is observed and shown as reported

The reefer page includes USDA's weekly table of refrigerated truck rates from produce regions to ten cities (latest week: 2026-11-10). Those rows are USDA survey figures, not Lane Cost estimates. Where enough shippers have run live quotes on a lane, the lane page also shows the range of those quotes.

Known limits

State and lane history applies today's place adjustments to the national series. It shows the national cycle correctly but not how a particular state's premium has changed over the years.
The level reflects the providers that returned quotes. A different mix of providers would move it.
Distances are estimated, not routed. Lanes around mountains, water or borders can be off by several percent.
The typical range is a fixed band around the estimate, wider for specialized trucks. It is not a measured distribution.
Latest-month price index values are preliminary and are revised by BLS for up to four months.

Sources

US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Indexes, trucking industry series, retrieved through FRED.
US Energy Information Administration, Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update, weekly US No. 2 diesel retail price.
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Refrigerated Truck Rates and Availability.
US Census Bureau, gazetteer files and city population estimates.
Lane Cost's own panel of live truckload quotes.

Lane Cost does not use or republish DAT, Truckstop, FreightWaves SONAR, Cass or other licensed rate data.