June 2026 Monthly Intermodal Shipping Report

The InTek Logistics Monthly Intermodal Shipping Report for June 2026 walks through where intermodal, truckload, and diesel stand, what the broader economic data is and is not telling us about freight demand, and what the combination means for shippers deciding how to position for the rest of the year.

The single most important development in June is the gap between how far freight rates have recovered and how little volume has moved to get them there. Intermodal spot rates have climbed to within a fraction of a percent of where they sat a year ago. Truckload spot rates are up more than 17 percent year over year.

Volume, by comparison, is up barely 2 percent. A market where rates recover this fast on this little volume is not a market responding to a surge in demand, but rather a market that has had capacity pulled out of it. And that distinction is the one shippers need to carry into their second-half planning.

At the end of this report, you will understand:

• Why intermodal spot rates are on the cusp of turning positive year over year for the first time this cycle, and why that milestone is about price rather than demand
• How to read the rate-versus-volume gap as the clearest available signal of a supply-led market
• Where truckload capacity has gone and why it does not return quickly
• What the recent easing in diesel does, and does not, change for carrier economics
• What the economic indicators say about near-term freight demand once you filter them through a freight lens
• The specific actions worth taking now, before demand returns to a market with no slack left in it

Key Freight Market Trends

Intermodal Market Overview

Intermodal spot rates extended their recovery through June. The number that matters is the year-over-year comparison, which has narrowed from a deficit of 8.4 percent at the late-March cycle low to just 0.2 percent as of today. Intermodal pricing is, for practical purposes, level with where it was a year ago.

At the current pace, the year-over-year line crosses into positive territory in the coming weeks, which would mark the first time intermodal spot rates have matched or exceeded prior-year levels since this downcycle began. We will address that crossing directly when it occurs.

Volume tells a quieter story. U.S. intermodal volume is up 2.4 percent year over year and North American volume is up 2 percent, both fresh highs for the current recovery and both measured against a 2025 baseline inflated by tariff-driven pull-forward in the spring. Among the railroads, CSX and BNSF led on volume, with NS also solidly positive and GMXT posting the strongest single reading on continued cross-border activity. UP ran negative, with CN and CPKC modestly so.

This is where the intermodal-confirms-truckload framework earns its place. Through June, intermodal and truckload have moved higher together. That joint confirmation is the signal this analysis weights most heavily, and it tells us the rate recovery is real rather than a truckload head-fake. What it does not tell us is that demand is driving the move. Rates have recovered nearly in full while volume has barely improved. The honest read is that both modes are repricing under the same condition: capacity has left the market, and the market is tighter than the volume numbers make it look.

Week-over-week detail is published every Thursday on the InTek Intermodal Index (III).

Truckload Market Overview

Truckload spot rates have moved higher through June, up 17.3 percent versus 2025 on a linehaul basis. The year-over-year figure is amplified by how depressed truckload pricing was a year ago, so the more durable signal is the trend: truckload has been establishing a higher floor rather than correcting back toward the prior one.

The driver is supply, not demand. Capacity has exited the truckload market under two sustained pressures, elevated fuel costs through the spring and tighter regulatory enforcement, and capacity that leaves under those conditions does not return quickly. The Logistics Managers' Index reinforces the point, with transportation pricing at an all-time high and transportation capacity deep in contraction. When the slack that normally cushions a demand increase has already been removed, truckload rates respond faster and harder to any return of freight than prior cycles would lead a shipper to expect.

Diesel and Energy Overview

Diesel is the one piece of the freight-cost picture now moving in shippers' favor. On-highway diesel stands at $5.059 per gallon in mid-June, down from an early-April near-peak of $5.643, a pullback of roughly $0.58 per gallon. Diesel now sits within about six cents of the $5.00 mark and roughly $0.75 below the 2022 record of $5.810, a record that looked within reach two months ago. The year-over-year comparison has eased as well, moderating from above 50 percent earlier in the spring to 41.7 percent now.

What moved it was less domestic supply and demand than a risk premium built into crude as Middle East tensions escalated in early spring, with the Strait of Hormuz the focal point. As that situation stabilized relative to its peak, the premium moderated and diesel followed. With all that said, the underlying situation is not fully resolved: crude can reprice quickly, and a single headline can reverse several weeks of easing. The trajectory is favorable, but far from guaranteed to stay that way.

For carriers, the recent decline in diesel is genuine margin relief after a long stretch above $5.60. That relief slows the pace of carriers leaving the market, but it does not bring back the capacity that already left. Operators who parked trucks during the worst of the fuel shock made structural decisions that a few weeks of easing do not undo. This is the same supply-side dynamic visible in the rate data: capacity left under sustained cost pressure and falling diesel changes the forward pace of exits without reversing the contraction that has already happened.

For shippers, fuel remains elevated at 41.7 percent above a year ago, so landed-cost models built on last year's assumptions understate today's reality. The level of diesel also changes the relative economics of mode. Intermodal moves freight with meaningfully less fuel per container-mile than over-the-road truckload, and that advantage widens as diesel climbs and as length of haul increases. A diesel environment 40 percent above the prior year is precisely the condition under which truckload-to-intermodal conversion math improves on longer lanes.

Looking forward, the Energy Information Administration's current outlook points to diesel staying elevated through much of 2026, with a projected peak in the neighborhood of $5.35 per gallon and a full-year 2026 average revised to around $4.95. The plain-terms view is elevated but moderating, with geopolitical tail risk that cuts both ways. Treat fuel as a band, not a point, in second-half budgets.

Economic Pulse

InTek publishes the full leading-indicator set each month as a standing reference. We do not walk through every line. The table below is the complete data with links to each source so you can go deeper where it matters to your business.

Logistics Managers' Index, upstream and downstream detail

The economic data this month resolves into a single freight-relevant read: the production side of the economy is steady, the consumer side is mixed, and neither is generating the kind of demand surge that would explain the rate move. Both Institute for Supply Management (ISM) indices sit in expansion, with manufacturing at its highest reading in two years and services accelerating.

The LMI underscores the supply story directly, with transportation pricing at an all-time high while transportation capacity stays in contraction. That combination, high price and low capacity, is the signature of a market tightening on supply rather than on demand.

The consumer signals point in different directions and are worth holding loosely. Consumer confidence edged down, while University of Michigan sentiment rebounded nine percent off a record low as early-month fuel relief reached households. Housing starts fell sharply. Against that backdrop, the strength in port volumes is the data point that ties back to intermodal most directly.

Both San Pedro Bay ports posted double-digit year-over-year import gains in May, and both attributed the strength to retailers pulling cargo forward to get ahead of fuel costs and trade-policy uncertainty. That is the same pull-forward dynamic visible in the intermodal volume comparisons. It moves boxes and tightens capacity now, but it borrows from future demand rather than creating new demand, which means the comparisons later in the year get harder, not easier.

Intermodal Outlook

The intermodal market enters the back half of June firmer than at any point in this cycle, and the firmness is structural rather than demand-led. Rates have recovered nearly in full on modest volume because the capacity that left truckload and intermodal during the fuel and enforcement pressure of the past several months has not come back. That is the core of the read, and it holds across both modes.

The intermodal-to-truckload spread is the lever shippers should be watching. As truckload spot rates establish a higher floor and diesel widens the fuel-efficiency gap on longer lanes, the economics of converting truckload freight to intermodal improve. The pricing window on intermodal is still open relative to where it will be once demand returns, but it is narrowing as the rate recovery matures. Volume trajectory points the same direction, positive and improving against tough comparisons, with the caveat that part of the current volume is pull-forward.

The structural point underneath all of it is the one this analysis has held throughout: capacity leaving a market is not the same as demand entering it, and the two call for different responses. A recovery you wait to confirm with volume is a recovery you join late. A recovery driven by supply tightening is one you position ahead of, because the rate response to any genuine return of demand will be faster than a volume-first playbook prepares you for.

What Shippers Should Be Doing Now

• Price intermodal lanes rather than after the year-over-year rate line turns positive, because the pricing window narrows as the rate recovery matures
• Lock capacity commitments while carriers still value committed freight, ahead of the demand return that a tightened market will amplify
• Rebuild landed-cost models around a diesel range rather than a point estimate, given a falling trajectory paired with unresolved geopolitical risk
• Audit your truckload lanes over 700 miles for intermodal conversion candidates, where the widening fuel-efficiency advantage does the most work
• Separate pull-forward from underlying demand in your own volume planning, so the harder comparisons later in the year do not catch your network flat-footed

June 2026 Freight Market Summary

• The freight market has recovered on price, not on volume, and that distinction should shape every capacity decision a shipper makes this quarter
• Intermodal spot rates are on the doorstep of positive year-over-year territory for the first time this cycle, a milestone about pricing rather than demand
• The slack that normally cushions a demand surge has been removed, which means truckload will respond faster and harder when freight returns
• Diesel relief is real for carriers but does not reverse the capacity that has already exited
• The time to build intermodal programs and lock capacity is before the demand move, not after it

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the current intermodal spot rate? As of mid-June 2026, the InTek intermodal spot rate index sits around $1.11 per mile excluding fuel, within 0.2 percent of where it stood a year ago after a recovery that began at the late-March cycle low.

Is the freight market recovering in June 2026? Yes, but on price rather than demand. Intermodal and truckload spot rates have both recovered substantially, while volume growth remains modest. The recovery is being driven by capacity leaving the market rather than by a surge in freight demand.

Why are rates rising faster than volume? Because the move is supply-led. Capacity exited truckload and intermodal under elevated fuel costs and tighter regulatory enforcement, and that capacity does not return quickly. A tighter market reprices on less volume.

How is diesel affecting freight costs in 2026? On-highway diesel has eased to about $5.06 per gallon from its early-April peak but remains roughly 42 percent above year-ago levels. The falling trajectory helps carrier margins and widens the intermodal fuel-efficiency advantage on longer lanes.

Should shippers be switching from truckload to intermodal right now? For lanes over roughly 700 miles, the case is strengthening as truckload establishes a higher rate floor and diesel widens the fuel-efficiency gap. The intermodal pricing window is still relatively open but narrowing as the recovery matures.

What is the Logistics Managers' Index saying about freight conditions? The May LMI read 69.5, with transportation pricing at an all-time high and transportation capacity in contraction. That high-price, low-capacity combination is the signature of a market tightening on supply rather than demand.

About the InTek Monthly Intermodal Shipping Report

The InTek Monthly Intermodal Shipping Report provides a data-driven snapshot of North American intermodal trends, integrating rail network performance, economic indicators, intermodal pricing, and strategic market intelligence for shippers.

If you'd like to evaluate how intermodal fits into your freight strategy, visit the InTek Logistics blog, where we continually add fresh how-to articles and other industry insights. If you'd like a lane-by-lane evaluation, simply request a quote to get started.

Related Reading:

• • InTek Intermodal Index for week-over-week spot rate, diesel, and volume detail, updated every Thursday.