Freight Has A Trailer Problem

Margins are tightening. Idle assets are costing fleets more than ever. This report breaks down the real data behind underutilization, drawing from REPOWR’s nationwide trailer-sharing marketplace and the latest industry research.

Learn how much inefficiency exists today, where the biggest gaps occur, and how leading fleets are using flexible trailers to eliminate waste and unlock new revenue.

‍Executive Summary

Why this report matters: U.S. trucking is operating on razor-thin margins while leaving massive value on the table through underutilized equipment and empty miles. ATRI's latest benchmarking shows an average operating cost of $2.26 per mile in 2024 with profitability "severely squeezed," while empty (deadhead) miles rose to approximately 16.7%. Industry-wide estimates suggest that as much as $45 billion worth of trucks and trailers are underutilized, representing a colossal amount of dormant capital.

The REPOWR vantage point: As a collaborative trailer-sharing marketplace, REPOWR observes real booking behavior, pickup timing, trailer mix, and geography at scale - insights static data sets can't see. Unlike annual surveys or suspended government reports, our platform data provides a real-time lens into how the market actually behaves.

Headline insight: Every idle trailer is not a neutral asset; it's an active financial liability that depreciates daily without contributing to revenue. More importantly, it's an opportunity to earn, to win freight, and to cut waste.

Market Overview: An Industry Under Pressure

The U.S. trucking industry serves as a critical economic backbone, yet it operates under significant and mounting financial and operational strain. Persistent cost inflation, cyclical freight demand, and structural inefficiencies are powerful catalysts forcing the industry to confront long-ignored issues - chief among them the underutilization of core assets.

The Economic Headwinds (2025 Snapshot)

Elevated Operating Costs: The average marginal cost of operating a truck reached $2.26 per mile in 2024, according to ATRI benchmark data*. Critically, non-fuel costs have climbed to record highs, placing sustained pressure on carrier margins even when fuel prices moderate.

Pervasive Inefficiency: Empty, or "deadhead," miles rose to approximately 16.7% in 2024. This means nearly one in every six miles driven generates zero revenue while still incurring fuel, labor, and maintenance costs. Reducing empty miles via backhaul matching lowers both cost and emissions.

Volatile Freight Cycle: The Cass Transportation Index for mid-2025 revealed that while inferred freight rates experienced a year-over-year increase, overall shipment volumes were trending downward. This divergence signals continued market uncertainty and complicates fleet planning.

Contracting Fleet Capacity and a Growing Gap in Supply: Recent industry data confirm that overall truckload capacity in the U.S. continues to shrink, and it’s doing so faster than demand. According to FreightWaves’ coverage, the available pool of active trucks and carriers has dropped significantly as smaller fleets exit the market. At the same time, while soft, has not declined as sharply meaning fewer trucks chasing freight. This imbalance tightens capacity across lanes even when volumes aren’t surging.

For trailer owners and leasing companies, this creates a built-in opportunity for monetization: underutilized trailers represent deployable capacity that many fleets now lack.

^{*Note: While the most recent published data is from 2024, numbers are increasing.}

The Data Gap Problem

Accurately tracking trailer utilization at a national level is notoriously difficult. The Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) MV-11 trailer table has been "temporarily suspended" in recent Highway Statistics, creating a significant data gap. This absence of reliable public data has historically obscured the multi-billion-dollar cost of underutilization, forcing the industry to rely on operational anecdotes.

REPOWR's solution: Real-time marketplace data fills this void, providing the first clear, quantifiable view into systemic inefficiency through actual booking transactions, fulfillment times, and geographic concentrations.

The Core Challenge: The True Cost of Idle Trailers

In logistics, asset utilization is a primary driver of profitability. While market discussions often center on freight rates and driver availability, the direct financial drain from idle and empty trailers represents a massive, largely untapped opportunity for value creation.

Why Idle Trailers Are Financial Liabilities

An idle trailer is not neutral; it actively costs money:

Wasted Capital: An idle trailer is a non-earning, depreciating asset. It incurs fixed costs for insurance, maintenance, and financing while generating zero return on investment.

Operational Drag: Trailer underutilization is directly linked to the industry's 16.7% empty mile statistic. Repositioning empty trailers to match available loads consumes fuel, driver hours, and valuable time that could be spent on revenue-generating activities.

Missed Revenue Opportunities: In a market where profitability is "severely squeezed," every idle trailer signifies a missed opportunity to accept a load, serve a customer, and generate income.

The Contrast: Traditional vs. Collaborative Models

Trailer Supply and Demand Trends on REPOWR

REPOWR's platform data reveals critical insights into how the market for flexible trailer capacity actually behaves in real-time.

Reservation Speed & Fulfillment: The Need for Immediate Capacity

The demand for flexible trailer capacity is overwhelmingly immediate:

• 72% same-day fulfillment rate
• 6 hours average from booking confirmation to trailer pickup

This data indicates that demand for supplemental trailers is not for long-term strategic planning, but for immediate, tactical execution - a need that traditional, slow-moving lease arrangements are ill-equipped to serve.

Hot Markets: Geographic Demand Concentration

Trailer demand is highly concentrated in and around major freight hubs. REPOWR's top 10 "Hot Markets" by booking volume are:

1. Indianapolis, IN
2. Atlanta, GA
3. Harrisburg, PA
4. Dallas, TX
5. Lakeland, FL
6. Phoenix, AZ
7. Stockton, CA
8. Columbus, OH
9. Allentown, PA
10. Philadelphia, PA

Seasonality: Produce and Retail Drive Demand Peaks

Utilization patterns are heavily influenced by seasonal freight surges:

• Produce season (April 1-July 1): 34.7% of annual activity
  
  • Top 2024 markets: Chattanooga (184 requests), Phoenix (142 requests)
• Retail season (August 1-October 31): 29.9% of annual activity
  
  • Top 2024 markets: Stockton (225 requests), Harrisburg (149 requests)

Trailer Mix: Dry Vans Dominate

The market for shared equipment mirrors the broader industry's reliance on standard equipment:

• Dry vans: 93.1% of REPOWR trailer mix
• Refrigerated (reefers): 5.3%
• Flatbeds: 1.6%

This aligns with ACT Research data showing dry vans accounted for approximately 61% of all new trailer demand between 2017 and 2021, while reefers represented ~15% and flatbeds ~9%. The concentration on REPOWR reflects the urgent, short-term nature of marketplace demand.

The table below summarizes three years of REPOWR marketplace activity, highlighting how rental rates and reservation durations differ across equipment types. This data reflects real transaction behavior and helps quantify the financial value and usage patterns of dry vans, flatbeds, and reefers.

Understanding the Usage Patterns

Dry vans remain the lowest-cost and fastest-turning asset on the marketplace, while flatbeds demonstrate consistently higher daily rates and the longest reservation durations, reflecting project-driven freight. Refrigerated trailers carry premium pricing but exhibit significantly shorter reservation durations in recent years; a shift aligned with seasonal and surge-driven demand.

How Trailers Flow Across the Network

Trailer movement patterns on REPOWR reveal how carriers actually utilize flexible capacity, not just where they pick up equipment, but where that equipment ultimately ends up. This flow is a strong indicator of market connectivity, imbalance, and the structural inefficiencies fleets are working to resolve.

Most Trailers Do Not Return to Their Origin

The data shows that 83% of REPOWR rentals end in a different market than where they began, while only 17% return to the original pickup market.

This demonstrates that the vast majority of trailer usage is tied to freight that moves directionally, not in closed loops. Fleets are leveraging REPOWR trailers to:

• Complete headhaul or repositioning moves
• Cover outbound lanes without committing to long-term equipment ownership
• Match variable network flows where their own trailers cannot be staged quickly enough

How Trailers Flow Across the Network

This behavior validates a key truth of modern freight operations: capacity must be as flexible as freight itself. Directional moves dominate U.S. shipping patterns, and the high share of destination-market drop-offs reflects the operational realities carriers face every day.

For trailer owners, this directional flow represents opportunity. Every non-returning trailer reflects a market seeking inbound capacity; opening the door for more dynamic repositioning and higher sustained utilization over time.

Equipment Utilization and Earnings on REPOWR

Turning Idle Assets Into Revenue Streams

Active utilization rate: 77% of trailers listed on REPOWR have at least one revenue booking, demonstrating strong, consistent demand.

Average earnings per listed trailer: $900.38 per booking

This quantifies the significant earning potential of converting a single idle trailer into an active marketplace asset. Instead of sitting empty in a yard accruing costs, a listed trailer generates income that directly offsets ownership expenses like insurance and maintenance.

Context: Why Monetization Matters Now

With fleet capacity contracted by 2.2% in 2024 and the drivers-per-truck ratio declined to 0.93, equipment imbalance and underutilization risk are at critical levels. Trailer-sharing monetizes this idle capacity precisely where the market needs it most.Carrier and Broker Benefits: Creating a Win-Win Ecosystem

A trailer-sharing marketplace transforms the zero-sum problem of idle assets into a mutually beneficial ecosystem, allowing equipment owners to generate new revenue while providing carriers and brokers with the flexible capacity they need to grow.

Carrier Benefits: On-Demand Flexibility and Cost Avoidance

Capital-Light Scaling: Carriers gain the ability to scale operations up or down without the significant capital expenditure and long-term commitment of purchasing or leasing trailers.

Quantifiable Cost Avoidance: Instead of bearing the burdensome all-in operating cost of an owned asset (ATRI benchmarks this at $2.26 per mile), carriers can substitute a flexible monthly rental:

• Market rental range: $530-610/month for dry vans (location/term dependent)
• This converts a significant capital expenditure into a manageable, short-term operating expense tied directly to a specific load or project

Speed as Competitive Advantage:

• 72% same-day availability enables carriers to react instantly to new opportunities
• 6-hour average from booking to pickup

Load Growth: By securing a REPOWR trailer, carriers can access "up to 9x more load opportunities" that would otherwise be out of reach due to equipment constraints.

Broker Benefits: Securing Capacity and Winning Bids

Improved Bid-Win Rates: The ability to confirm trailer availability at the time of quoting significantly improves bid-win rates and reduces the time-to-cover a load.

Nationwide Network: With trailers available in 300,000+ locations, brokers can confidently serve shipper clients across a vast geography, strengthening relationships and driving business growth.

Surge Capacity Without CapEx: During peak seasons (retail, produce), brokers can secure the capacity they need to cover surges without any capital expenditure or long-term commitments.

Technology and Visibility: The Foundation for Scale

The success of a large-scale collaborative marketplace hinges on technology that reduces friction, automates processes, and builds trust. For asset sharing to become mainstream, it must integrate seamlessly with the tools and workflows that logistics professionals already use.

Ecosystem Integration: 36+ Connected Systems

REPOWR connects with 36+ industry systems, including:

• Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs): Samsara, Motive
• Telematics platforms: SkyBitz
• Transportation Management Systems (TMS)
• Load boards

This ensures shared assets can be managed within existing workflows, dramatically lowering the barrier to adoption and transforming asset-sharing from a separate, manual task into a seamless operational capability.

Real-Time Asset Visibility

These integrations provide up-to-the-minute tracking of a trailer's location and status. This visibility is crucial for:

• Coordinating the same-day placements that the market demands
• Identifying opportunities to arrange backhauls, which directly reduces costly empty miles

Frictionless Onboarding

Streamlined Insurance Verification: Users can easily upload their own coverage or opt into an interchange insurance program starting at just $7/day, eliminating a traditional bottleneck to getting on the road quickly.

This technological backbone makes a truly liquid and trusted national asset market possible, moving the concept of large-scale collaboration from a theoretical ideal to a practical, daily reality.

The Road Ahead: Future Outlook for 2026 and Beyond

Synthesizing the intense market pressures facing trucking with the proven capabilities of collaborative platforms, it's clear that the adoption of flexible, asset-sharing models represents a structural shift in logistics strategy. This is no longer a niche alternative but an evolution driven by economic necessity and enabled by modern technology.

Key Trends Shaping the Future

Increased Adoption for Capital Preservation: As fleets navigate a volatile market (evidenced by the tentative firming of freight rates in the Cass Index), the focus on preserving capital will intensify. Demand for flexible, non-ownership access to trailers will continue to grow as companies prioritize operational agility over fixed-asset investment.

Expansion to New User Segments: The asset-sharing model will expand beyond its traditional user base. Major retailers, shippers, and private fleets—who often have their own underutilized regional trailer pools—are expected to begin listing their equipment on marketplaces to offset ownership costs and build greater supply chain resilience.

Driving Sustainability Goals: As the industry faces growing pressure to decarbonize, improving asset utilization represents one of the few immediately scalable levers for reducing emissions. Reducing empty miles through better backhaul matching and collaborative trailer sharing is one of the most practical and impactful decarbonization strategies available today, delivering environmental benefits alongside economic ones.

From Surge Solution to Essential Infrastructure: Collaborative platforms are rapidly moving from a niche solution for surge capacity to an essential component of the future logistics operating model. By converting idle assets into active opportunities, these networks are building a more resilient, profitable, and efficient future for the entire industry.

Methodology & About REPOWR

Methodology

External sources:

• American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI)
• Cass Transportation Index
• American Trucking Associations (ATA)
• Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) / Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS)
• ACT Research
• FreightWaves SONAR

REPOWR platform data: Anonymized marketplace transactions, trailer listings, requests/reservations, time-to-pickup, trailer mix, geography, integrations, and program (POWR Streak/referrals/insurance) engagement.

All REPOWR metrics specify sample window (dates), sample size (N), trailer types covered, and statistical approach (median, mean, IQR), with graphics indicating 90% confidence intervals where applicable.

About REPOWR

REPOWR is the collaborative trailer-sharing marketplace and digital leasing platform that connects carriers, brokers, and trailer owners to share trailers seamlessly, delivering flexibility, profitability, and ease through on-demand access and connected technology.

Our mission is simple: Share More. Move More. Earn More.

By converting idle trailers into earning assets and providing on-demand capacity where and when it's needed, REPOWR is building a more efficient, resilient, and profitable future for logistics.