Out of Capacity: The Freight Crisis No One Wants to Talk About

Here's the uncomfortable truth about freight in 2025: we're drowning in trucks while simultaneously starving for capacity. It sounds impossible, but that's exactly where we are.

If you've been shipping freight lately, you've felt it. Rates that should be rock-bottom are suddenly spiking. Carriers you've worked with for years are either going out of business or can't commit to your lanes. And forget about finding reliable capacity during peak season – it's like hunting for unicorns.

This isn't just another market cycle. This is a fundamental breakdown that's reshaping how freight moves in America, and most people in the industry are too busy fighting fires to talk about what's really happening.

The Paradox That's Breaking Everything

Here's the mind-bender: we have more trucks on the road than ever before, but less reliable capacity than we've seen in decades. During the freight boom, everyone and their brother bought trucks. Now we're paying the price.

The numbers don't lie. Truck utilization is sitting above 80% through the end of the year, which sounds healthy until you realize that demand has cratered. We've got too many trucks chasing too little freight, which should mean cheap rates for shippers. Instead, we're seeing carriers go bankrupt left and right – five major transportation companies filed Chapter 11 in October alone.

When carriers fold overnight (and they are), they take their capacity with them. Montgomery Transport didn't even bother with bankruptcy – they just shut the doors and walked away from 450 trucks. That's 450 trucks worth of capacity that vanished in a single day.

The result? A market where there are plenty of trucks but fewer and fewer companies you can actually count on to move your freight.

Truckload and Reefer: Where the Pain Hits Hardest

The supply-demand mess isn't hitting all freight equally. Truckload and refrigerated transport are getting hammered the worst.

Think about it: reefer freight can't wait. Your produce shipment can't sit on a dock for three days while you hunt for cheaper capacity. Temperature-controlled goods need to move now, with carriers who have properly maintained equipment and drivers who know what they're doing.

But the reliable reefer carriers? They're either consolidating, raising rates to stay profitable, or exiting lanes entirely. The ones offering rock-bottom prices are often the ones most likely to leave you stranded when something goes wrong.

The same dynamic is crushing dry van truckload. Owner-operators who used to provide flexible capacity are pulling back from the market. Small carriers that filled gaps during surge periods are maxed out on credit or already gone. What's left are either the big players who can weather the storm or the desperate operators who'll take any load at any price – until they can't.

When Peak Season Becomes Panic Season

Remember when seasonal surges meant paying a predictable premium? Those days are over.

Now seasonal peaks trigger what can only be called emergency rates. We're not talking about a 15-20% bump during holiday shipping season. We're seeing 50-100% rate spikes that appear overnight and disappear just as fast, leaving shippers scrambling to adjust budgets and explain cost overruns to management.

The reason? The capacity buffer that used to absorb seasonal surges doesn't exist anymore. When demand spikes, there's no army of independent operators ready to jump in. The carriers still standing are already running at capacity, so any increase in volume immediately becomes a bidding war.

Worse, these emergency rates aren't just happening during traditional peak seasons. A weather event, a port backup, or even a major carrier going out of business can trigger capacity crunches that send rates through the roof in specific lanes with zero warning.

The New Reality: Reliability Over Price

This is where the entire purchasing playbook is getting rewritten. For decades, freight procurement was about finding the lowest rate. Now it's about finding carriers who'll actually show up.

Shippers are finally realizing that the cheapest quote often comes from the carrier most likely to:

• Go out of business mid-contract

• Show up three days late with a broken-down truck

• Abandon loads when they find higher-paying freight

• Disappear entirely when market conditions get tough

Smart shippers aren't asking "What's your rate?" anymore. They're asking "How long have you been in business?" and "What's your on-time performance?" and "Can you guarantee capacity during peak season?"

The result is a flight to quality that's concentrating business among fewer, more established carriers. These carriers can charge premium rates because shippers would rather pay more for reliability than deal with the chaos of working with unstable operators.

It's not just about service levels either. When a carrier fails to pick up your load, you're not just dealing with late delivery. You're scrambling to find replacement capacity at emergency rates, explaining delays to customers, and potentially losing business to competitors who secured better carrier relationships.

Solutions That Actually Work

So what's a shipper to do? The old strategies don't work anymore, but there are approaches that can help you navigate this mess.

Build Scalable Carrier Networks

Don't rely on 2-3 primary carriers. Build a network of 8-12 qualified carriers across different sizes and specialties. Yes, it's more work to manage, but when one carrier hits capacity constraints or goes out of business, you've got options.

The key word is "qualified." This isn't about having more carriers on your list – it's about having more carriers you can actually count on. Do the financial due diligence. Check their insurance. Understand their operational capacity. A carrier that looks great on paper but can't handle your volume requirements when you need them most is worse than useless.

Embrace Flexibility in Routing and Timing

Rigid shipping schedules are a luxury we can't afford anymore. Build flexibility into your supply chain where possible. If you can ship Tuesday instead of Monday, or route through Kansas City instead of Chicago, you might avoid capacity bottlenecks entirely.

This means working with your internal teams to understand which shipments are truly time-critical and which have flexibility. It also means developing relationships with carriers who can handle last-minute routing changes when primary lanes get jammed up.

Invest in Proactive Capacity Planning

The days of calling for trucks the day before you need them are over. Successful shippers are planning capacity weeks or months in advance, especially around known busy periods.

This isn't just about booking loads early – it's about understanding capacity trends in your key lanes and adjusting plans accordingly. If you know a particular route gets tight in Q4, you need to be securing capacity in Q3, even if it means paying slightly higher rates.

The IMFX Advantage in Chaos

This is exactly why IMFX exists. While other brokers are scrambling to find any available truck, we've spent years building the kind of carrier network that can weather these storms.

Our carrier partners aren't just whoever answered the phone – they're financially stable operators with proven track records. We don't just match you with the cheapest rate; we match you with carriers who'll be there when you need them most.

More importantly, we're constantly monitoring market conditions across all our lanes. When we see capacity tightening in specific regions or routes, we're already working on alternatives before it becomes your problem.

What's Coming Next

The brutal truth is that this crisis isn't ending anytime soon. More carriers will fail. Rates will remain volatile. The capacity you count on today might not be there tomorrow.

But the companies that adapt to this new reality – that prioritize carrier relationships over cheapest rates, that build flexibility into their supply chains, that plan proactively instead of reactively – those companies will have a massive competitive advantage.

The freight market is consolidating around fewer, stronger players. The question is whether you'll be working with them or still chasing the lowest bidder into another capacity crisis.

Your supply chain is too important to leave to chance. In a market where reliability has become the ultimate premium, make sure you're working with partners who understand that your freight isn't just another load – it's your business moving through the economy.

The crisis is real. The solutions exist. The choice is yours.