A long, long time ago, in a land not so far, far away, a world existed where logistics was linear: Pangaea. On this supercontinent, moving products from China to the United States, door to door, was simple. The goods would move over the road, heading southwest from lands where people spoke Chinese and stopped when people spoke American.

There are strong signs of life in the freight industry following a difficult start to the year due to the Polar Vortex, according to CarrierDirect, which has just released its semiannual domestic freight market perspective.

Among the biggest things that will affect the freight markets this year are the return of pricing power to carriers and the re-shoring/nearshoring phenomenon, according to CarrierDirect's semi-annual forecast on the state of the domestic freight industry.