Chart of the week: Tender turnaround time index SONAR – USA SONAR: Seasonality view STLT.USA
Shippers’ bidding times for requesting truckload capacity increased 7.3% to 3.63 days in 2025, compared to 3.38 days in 2024. This represents a 39% increase over the average delivery time in 2019 and marks the sixth consecutive year that shippers have given carriers more time to cover contract charges. While truckload delivery times may not be a major statistic, they are a strong indicator that shippers have improved their ability to anticipate freight movements, while also helping carriers keep capacity more readily available.
The SONAR Tender Lead Time (STLT) index measures the time between a shipper’s request for coverage and the requested pickup date. For example, if a shipper delivers a load on January 5 with a pickup date of January 9, the lead time is four days. Typically, an ideal delivery time is between three and six days, as this gives carriers ample time to reposition equipment in the pickup market.
The fact that shippers are giving carriers a full day more to position trucks than in 2019 is remarkable. Before the pandemic, markets with sufficient capacity typically experienced lead time compression. In fact, average delivery times decreased by about 4% between 2018 and 2019 as capacity decreased.
Order delivery times can be difficult to interpret, as changes can signal multiple dynamics. Delivery times often increase during the holidays as shippers place orders later to ensure capacity after holiday disruptions, particularly around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Delivery times also tend to increase when shippers anticipate potential difficulties securing capacity, but they can decrease quickly when unexpected demand emerges, making additional context critical for interpretation.
From 2023 to 2024, delivery times increased by only 1.1%, the smallest gain in the last six years. This is notable given that bid rejection rates were on average more than a percentage point higher in 2024, suggesting slightly tougher capacity conditions. Although some may have expected a larger increase in delivery times, it is possible that the increase in rejection rates was not large enough to significantly change shipper behavior.
Bid rejection rates measure carriers’ willingness and ability to cover contracted freight. When national rejection rates are below 5%, capacity is generally plentiful. Rates above 9% signal a much more challenging environment, in which spot market rates tend to rise rapidly.
The average rejection rate in 2025 was just above 6%, compared to just under 5% in 2024. In 2023, the average rejection rate was around 3.85%.
