Cass's monthly freight index report showed shipping expenditures falling to 1.4 percent from a year earlier, while volume in the same period was down 0.2 percent, extending declines to a fourth month.
The freight market is typically slower in January. But the numbers illustrate how shippers continue to hold back on spending because of elevated inventory levels, even as lower fuel prices make it cheaper to move goods.
Trucking companies have reported lower profits and many have seen their share prices plunge as shippers have cut back.
