AI Analysis: For-hire motor carrier freight services price index, monthly

Executive Summary

Canada's for-hire motor carrier freight services price index rose 56.5% over nearly two decades, climbing from 78.1 in January 2007 to 122.2 in December 2025, with a dramatic acceleration during the 2021–2022 post-pandemic period that pushed the index to a peak of 128.2 in November 2022. Across all 8 NAICS trucking categories, prices move in strong unison driven by shared macroeconomic forces such as fuel costs, inflation, and demand cycles, though individual segments show meaningful differences in average levels and volatility. Despite some moderation since the 2022 peak, freight prices remain well above the 2021 baseline, signaling a structural upward shift in Canadian trucking costs.

Key Findings

• The overall freight price index rose 56.5% from 78.1 in January 2007 to 122.2 in December 2025, representing a sustained long-term upward trend across the Canadian trucking industry.
• The index peaked at 128.2 in November 2022, driven by post-pandemic supply chain disruptions, with the largest single-month surge of +5.01% recorded in March 2022 coinciding with fuel cost spikes following the Ukraine conflict.
• The lowest recorded value was 77.2 in May 2009, likely reflecting reduced freight demand during the global financial crisis, making the 2009 trough-to-2022 peak swing a remarkable 51.0 index points.
• Specialized freight trucking, local [48422] recorded the highest mean price index at 108.84, while used household and office goods moving [48421] had the lowest mean at 89.55 and the widest value range of 57.0 points, indicating the greatest price volatility of any category.
• All 8 NAICS freight categories are very strongly correlated with one another, confirming that broad economic conditions — rather than sector-specific factors — are the primary driver of freight price movements across the industry.
• Only 4 months across the entire 228-month dataset were flagged as statistical outliers, confirming that the index typically moves gradually and that the 2021–2022 surge, while extreme, unfolded progressively rather than in sudden jumps.
• The overall index mean of 95.81 sits below the 2021 base of 100, reflecting that for most of the 2007–2025 history freight prices were lower than 2021 levels, with the post-pandemic surge being a relatively recent and significant departure from historical norms.