"The trucking industry started 2013 with a bang, reflected in the best January tonnage report in five years," said Bob Costello, ATA's chief economist. "While I believe that the overall economy will be sluggish in the first quarter, trucking likely benefited in January from an inventory de-stocking that transpired late last year, thus boosting volumes more than normal early this year as businesses replenish those lean inventories."

ATA recently revised the seasonally adjusted index back five years as part of its annual revision. For all of 2012, tonnage was up 2.3 percent the same as reported prior to the revision. In 2011, the index was up 5.8 percent.

The not seasonally adjusted index, which represents the change in tonnage actually hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, equaled 122.4 in January, which was 10.7 percent above the previous month (110.5).

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