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by floppydisk 3795 days ago
Yes, you can get very general macro insights from metrics like that--if they're publicly available--but they are kind of worthless from a understanding point of view because they don't tell you what/where/when/who. The federal government does something similar with imports/exports for energy. But it's voluntary surveys and not guaranteed to be reliable. Especially since how much someone moves is competitive info.

It's more interesting to know that JP Hunt increased their lettuce hauling business from California to Missouri than it is to know that trucking tonnage creeped up ir down. That doesn't give you insight into the why or what's happening behind the scenes.