The trucking freight cycle — already being driven primarily by supply constraints rather than demand — could last beyond the end of next year or into the first quarter of 2028 if regulatory enforcement stalls, and could extend significantly longer if pending rules are enacted, according to Thom Albrecht, Chief Revenue Officer of Reliance Partners, one of the largest insurance brokers focused exclusively on trucking.

The stakes reach well beyond the industry itself: trucks haul more than 70% of U.S. domestic freight tonnage, according to American Trucking Associations figures, and the sector has spent the years since 2022 working through a prolonged freight downturn that pushed thousands of small carriers out of the market — the backdrop against which supply-side enforcement is now accelerating.

Albrecht, who began his Wall Street career covering freight in 1989 and calls the current period the most fascinating supply cycle he has seen in his career, identified five supply-side developments that have already reshaped carrier capacity:

• English language proficiency enforcement
• Action on non-domiciled drivers
• Elimination of self-certification at CDL institutions
• The move away from self-certification for electronic logging devices (ELDs)
• Legal fallout from the Montgomery Supreme Court decision, including what he called a recent large C.H. Robinson verdict

The Montgomery ruling — the Supreme Court's June 2025 decision that federal transportation law does not preempt state-law negligent-selection claims against freight brokers — has put broker vetting of carriers under fresh legal scrutiny.

Demand, while not robust, has improved, Albrecht said during the interview. The Purchasing Managers Index, a widely watched barometer of factory-sector activity, showed only 4 of its 18 surveyed industries reporting growth in September of last year, rising to 9 in January, 14 in June, and 15 out of 18 in July — a broadening that signals demand strengthening alongside the supply-driven recovery.

"If all of the regulatory progress stopped with those 5 things and a lot of things that are being discussed don't come to fruition, then the cycle will be over by the end of next year or Q1 of '28. But if some of these other things are enacted, then next—" Albrecht said, before being cut off as the host noted the trajectory follows a normal cycle pattern.

ELD overhaul as a centerpiece

A centerpiece of Albrecht's outlook is the planned elimination of ELD self-certification. The devices, mandated for most interstate carriers since December 2017, automatically record drivers' hours of service. There are currently roughly 1,000 registered ELDs in the United States, compared with 41 in Canada, where a rigorous certification process checks more than 500 compliance points per device. He argued the U.S. market would consolidate dramatically — potentially to 20 or fewer certified providers, mirroring Canada's compliance standard — weeding out devices used to falsify records.

He also called for stiffer fines on both drivers and motor carriers for English language proficiency violations — a standard federal roadside inspectors began enforcing with out-of-service orders in late June 2025 — and suggested that freight itself could be seized by the government as an enforcement tool.

New entrant reform

On new entrant reform, Albrecht advocated for a proposed rulemaking that would require prospective carriers to answer 100 or more questions covering maintenance, hours of service, and driver skills before receiving a DOT number. He also floated raising the cost of obtaining a new DOT number from roughly $300 today to between $5,000 and $10,000, saying that price signal alone would curtail the practice of operators cycling through registrations to evade enforcement. Last year, approximately 60,000 brand-new DOT numbers were issued.

What rail, chemicals, scrap and grain are signaling

The broader demand picture offers some support for carriers. Rail freight data cited during the discussion showed the freight index reached its second-highest level since 2008.

Albrecht said he tracks chemicals as a proxy for future industrial activity and scrap metal for its flexibility as an industrial input, and that both commodity flows point toward gradual improvement in the manufacturing economy. He predicted a bumper corn crop this year, driven by heavy rainfall across the Midwest and Southeast, which would add to already strong grain export shipments moving by rail.

Shippers unlikely to force a rollback

On the question of whether large shippers could lobby Washington to ease carrier regulations and relieve tightening capacity, Albrecht was skeptical. He noted that transportation costs rarely surface as a top priority for major retail and industrial CFOs, and that the current administration has shown little appetite for walking back enforcement actions driven by safety and immigration compliance — areas he described as more bipartisan than shipper-friendly.

"Safety is paramount," he said. "That was never deregulated."

The bottom line

Albrecht sees the freight cycle extending to the end of 2027 or the first quarter of 2028 at minimum, with potential for a longer run if ELD, CDL, and new-entrant rules gain enforcement teeth. For operators trying to read where freight goes next, his takeaway is that supply — not demand — remains the variable driving the market's trajectory.

The swing factors he leaves for readers to track are specific: whether the ELD self-certification overhaul advances, how the new-entrant rulemaking is finalized, and how aggressively language and licensing standards are enforced — each a lever that, in his framing, could push the cycle past that base case.

This article is based on a transcription of the interview; the full interview is available at FreightWaves.