ArcBest Corporation Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

ArcBest Corporation (NASDAQ: ARCB) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Apr. 28, 2026

Presentation

Operator

And thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ARCB’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I will now turn it over to Amy Mendenhall, Vice President, treasury and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Amy Mendenhall — Vice President, Investor Relations & Treasury

Good morning. I’m here today with Seth Runzer, our President and CEO, and Matt Beasley, our Chief Financial Officer. Other members of our Executive Leadership team will also be available during the Q and A session. Before we begin, please note that some of the comments we make today will include forward looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which are detailed in the Forward Looking Statements section of our Earnings release and SEC filings to provide meaningful comparisons.

We will also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures that are outlined and described in the tables of our earnings release. Reconciliations of GAAP to non GAAP measures are provided in the Additional Information section of the presentation slide. You can access the Conference call slide deck on our website@arcb.com in our 8K filed earlier this morning or follow along on the webcast. And now I will turn the call over to Seth.

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you Amy and good morning everyone. The first quarter brought a challenging operating environment with severe winter weather, higher fuel prices and continued uncertainty. Even so, we remain focused on what we can control, executing our long term strategy with discipline and advancing initiatives that support profitable growth, efficiency and innovation. I am incredibly proud of how the ArcBest team responded in a dynamic environment. They stayed disciplined, remained close to our customers and and continue delivering flexible, efficient and integrated solutions to meet evolving needs.

Customer demand has remained steady and we continue to see improvement in our pipeline. While the timing and pace of a broader recovery remains difficult to predict, conditions are becoming more constructive. Leading indicators of manufacturing activity have moved into expansion, which is supportive of future freight demand. At the same time, truckload markets are showing early signs of tightening as capacity continues to exit the industry, driven in part by regulatory enforcement and higher operating costs.

In our customer conversations, there’s an increasing emphasis on execution, reliability and visibility, and those priorities align closely with how ArcBest serves its customers. Against that backdrop, we will launch ArcBest View in May. This platform enables customers to quote, book and track shipments across our logistics solutions through a single intuitive Interface. We developed ArcBestView in close partnership with customers and early feedback has been very encouraging. Combined with our integrated solutions and continued progress in our digital capabilities, this platform enhances our ability to help customers respond quickly, manage complexity and build more resilient supply chains.

Importantly, this launch reflects a broader set of capabilities we have been intentionally building. Over time. Our investments in the network technology and operating tools have strengthened execution today while expanding what we can deliver for customers. Going forward, we continue to advance the initiatives we outlined at Investor Day and our team remains focused and aligned on achieving our long term targets. Let me walk you through our progress for the quarter. In the asset based segment, daily shipments increased 2% year over year to nearly 20,000 shipments per day, while severe winter weather affected volumes and service earlier in the quarter.

Service has since normalized and remains at a high level. The investments we’ve made in our network equipment and labor planning tools position us to sustain strong, consistent service through the summer months and across the balance of the year. We also remain disciplined on pricing. Deferred price increases averaged 6% in the first quarter, our strongest result since the third quarter of 2022. That reflects our continued focus on revenue quality. In addition, the expansion of our dynamic quote pool has given us greater ability to make real time pricing decisions, allowing us to be more selective and further optimize yield and profitability.

Demand for our managed solutions offering continued to build during the quarter resulting in another record performance and double digit growth in daily shipment. This momentum reflects a stronger pipeline, deeper customer engagements and the value our team brings as they help customers manage increasingly complex supply chains. In truckload, we remain focused on optimizing freight mix and maintaining pricing discipline. Revenue per shipment improved meaningfully both year over year and sequentially, driven by a tighter capacity market, higher fuel prices and improved yield quality.

Across the business, we continue to make progress on efficiency and innovation initiatives. Continuous improvement training has now been implemented across approximately 75% of the network. Teams are focused on process discipline, safety and adoption of new tools and that work is producing tangible results. To date, these efforts have generated $32 million in annualized cost savings with additional benefits expected as implementation continues through the remainder of the year. We are also making meaningful progress with our City Route Optimization project and remain on track to complete the latest phases of deployment.

This AI enabled initiative is reducing manual work, improving route planning and increasing asset utilization across the network. Phases two and three are expected to be fully operational in the coming months. To date, the program has delivered 15 million in annualized savings while also improving network efficiency and service. The success we are seeing with City Route Optimization reflects a broader philosophy at ArcBest. We start with strong ideas, test them in the business, learn quickly, refine what works, and then scale with discipline.

That approach is shaping how we deploy AI and is guiding the next wave of initiatives across our technology roadmap. Our AI strategy is deliberate and closely aligned with our business priorities. We are deploying AI where it can create meaningful operational and financial impact and we are embedding AI capabilities into core initiatives across the organization. Just as important, we are not forcing a single solution across the complex business business. Instead, we are applying the right tools for the right needs.

This approach allows us to move with speed and purpose while maintaining the governance required to ensure these solutions are secure, responsible and scalable. We believe AI delivers the most value when it strengthens our people and enables better decision making. Our approach is practical and disciplined. We are investing in initiatives with clear return partnering externally where it accelerates progress in combining advanced technology with the network processes and expertise that already differentiate ArcBest.

Most importantly, our customers remain at the center of this work. Digital tools are helping us serve them better while the expertise, responsiveness and reliability they expect from ArcBest remain unchanged. Across our technology roadmap, including AI driven initiatives, we are aligning resources, simplifying processes and using data more effectively to help offset inflationary cost pressures, improve decision making and lower our cost to serve. That work is driving meaningful productivity gains across the business.

In asset light, for example, we continue to improve how we manage and optimize buy rates, particularly as market conditions shift. Initiatives such as offer collection, automated negotiation and capacity sourcing augmentation are enabling faster, more informed decisions. Taken together, our technology and AI initiatives are strengthening our business. They are improving how we work, enhancing operational performance and helping ArcBest execute effectively today while building for the long term. Looking ahead, we remain focused on removing barriers and simplifying how work gets done across the organization.

That means enabling teams to collaborate more effectively, move faster and stay focused on what matters most to our customers. As we continue to align and streamline our operation, we are strengthening our execution today and building a more agile, scalable ArcBest for the future. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Matt to walk through the financial results.

J. Matthew Beasley — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you Seth and good morning everyone. In the first quarter, disciplined execution, operational focus and cost control enabled us to navigate the challenging environment while continuing to position the business for long term success on a consolidated basis. First quarter revenue was $1 billion, up 3% year over year. Non GAAP operating income was $13 million compared to $17 million in the prior year period and adjusted earnings per share were $0.32 compared to $0.51 in the first quarter of 2025 at the segment level, asset based operating income declined by $9 million year over year, while asset Light generated non GAAP operating income of $3 million, an improvement of $4 million from last year.

Turning to the asset based segment, first quarter revenue was $655 million, up 2% on a per day basis. ABF’s operating ratio was 97.3%, which was 140 basis points higher than last year and 110 basis points higher. Sequentially, daily tonnage increased 7%, reflecting a 2% increase in shipments per day and a 5% increase in weight per shipment. Our large and growing digital quote pool continues to improve our visibility into demand and expand our options within the network. That has allowed us to target certain heavier shipments that fit well operationally and generate attractive incremental profit contributions.

Revenue per shipment increased slightly supported by the higher weight per shipment, but that was partially offset by a 4% decline in revenue per hundredweight, which primarily reflects the shift in freight profile toward heavier shipment. On the cost side, operating expenses increased for several reasons including additional labor needed to support shipment growth, annual contract increases in union wage rates, higher fuel prices, and increased depreciation expense associated with our equipment investment.

Turning to trends so far in April, shipments per day are down 1% year over year while weight per shipment is up 6%, resulting in daily tonnage growth of 5%. We are beginning to see modest improvement in truckload rated shipments which along with other changes in freight profile is contributing to the higher weight per shipment. Revenue per shipment in April has increased 10% year over year driven by the heavier freight profile and a 4% increase in revenue per hundredweight, largely reflecting higher fuel surcharge revenue.

Excluding fuel surcharge, revenue per hundredweight declined in the low single digits, primarily due to changes in freight profile. Sequentially from March to April, weight per shipment is flat, shipments per day are up 1% and tonnage per day is also up 1%. Revenue per shipment has improved by about 4% due to a 4% increase in revenue per hundredweight, largely reflecting higher fuel costs. Excluding fuel surcharge revenue, revenue per hundredweight was slightly positive on a sequential basis. Fuel impacts became more pronounced in April than they were in the first quarter, which included only one month of elevated fuel prices.

Higher fuel costs increase fuel surcharge revenue, but they also raise operating costs across the network. While our fuel surcharge mechanisms are designed to recover higher fuel costs over time, periods of rapid fuel price movement can create short term timing differences between when revenue is recognized and when those costs are incurred. Historically, ABF’s non GAAP operating ratio improves by approximately 350 basis points from the first quarter to the second quarter. Based on current trends, we expect second quarter performance to improve sequentially by approximately 400 to 500 basis points.

This outlook reflects continued momentum in our commercial pipeline, disciplined execution on pricing initiatives and the impact of recent fuel price movements. Turning to the asset light segment, first quarter revenue was $378 million, up 7% on a daily basis. Year over year. Shipments per day increased 10% and reached a new first quarter record as strong growth in maintenance solutions more than offset our strategic reduction of less profitable truckload volumes. Revenue per shipment declined 3% as higher rates associated with tightening capacity and increased fuel costs were more than offset by a greater mix of managed business which typically involves smaller shipment sizes and lower revenue per shipment.

We also made meaningful progress on the cost side. Selling general and administrative expense per shipment declined 15% to the lowest level on record, driven by productivity initiatives and a higher mix of managed business which carries a lower cost to serve. Employee productivity also reached a record high with shipments per person per day increasing 26%. As a result, the Asset Light segment delivered non GAAP operating income of $3 million in the first quarter. Turning to April trends for Asset Light daily revenue is up approximately 24% year over year driven by 17% shipment growth led by our managed business.

Revenue per shipment has increased 7% reflecting higher fuel costs and early signs of tightening capacity in the truckload market. Looking ahead, we expect second quarter non GAAP operating income in asset life to be in the range of approximately $1 million to $3 million. This outlook reflects continued yield discipline, active cost management and improved productivity performance which together provide a solid foundation for long term profitable growth. Turning to capital allocation, we continue to take a balanced long term approach that supports growth while maintaining strong financial discipline.

Many of the network, technology and productivity investments needed to support future growth are already in place as market conditions improve. We believe the business is well positioned to benefit from improving demand without a meaningful increase in capital requirements, which should support attractive returns on invested capital. Returning capital to shareholders remains an important priority. In the first quarter of 2026, we returned more than $10 million through a combination of share repurchases and dividends.

Looking ahead, we expect to remain opportunistic with repurchases based on share price while continuing to prioritize high return organic investments in a disciplined approach to leverage our balance sheet remains a significant strength. We have ample liquidity and a net debt to EBITDA ratio that is well below the S&P 500 average. This financial position provides flexibility to navigate uncertainty, invest where we see attractive returns, and respond quickly as opportunities emerge. As Seth said, we are staying focused on what we can control, executing our long term strategy with discipline and advancing initiatives that support profitable growth, efficiency and innovation.

As we look ahead, we remain confident in our strategic direction and in our ability to deliver the long term targets we outlined at Investor Day with that operator, we are ready to open the call for questions.

Question & Answers

Operator

As a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, you’ll be limited to one question per participant. Your first question comes from the line of Ravi Shankar from Morgan Stanley. Your line is live.

Ravi Shanker — Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Great, thanks. Morning everyone. It says at the top of the call that you’re seeing conditions becoming more constructive. Can you help unpack that a little bit? Which end markets maybe which parts of the country are seeing that? And do you expect that to be fairly broad based through the course of the year?

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey Robbie, it’s Seth. Thanks for the question and good morning. We are seeing demand trends that have started to stabilize, though overall levels still remain below mid cycle norms. Manufacturing and housing continues to pressure our volumes like we’ve talked about in the past, and that’s particularly around weight per shipment, which really remains below normalized levels for the network. Despite these headwinds. We were able to grow shipments by 2% and asset based year over year and our dynamic shipments are starting to trend heavier as well and that reflects some improving freight selection that we’ve had in the network.

April tonnage and shipments have also increased sequentially. They’ve tracked in line with normal seasonality and that’s an encouraging sign as we move through the rest of the year and really where our focus is is on pricing discipline, service consistency and cost control while really staying closely engaged with our customers during this volatile time with fuel prices and everything that’s going on, capacity fundamentals continue to move in a more constructive direction and that really provides the earliest sign of a more balanced market ahead.

You’ve heard about the ongoing truckload carrier exits, just tighter regulatory environment, aging industry fleets, which makes me happy that we’ve invested in our fleet throughout this cycle. So the timing of the demand inflection still remains uncertain, but the supply rationalization is progressing, which is good. You’ve seen manufacturing PMI move into expansion territory these past three months and that’s just an important directional indicator of where freight demand is going. Housing, automotive still is constrained, but they could improve as, you know, rate cuts and things like that happen hopefully later in this year.

But as conditions normalize our available network capacity, strong customer relationships and our pipeline position us well to capture incremental demand efficiently and productively. I’ve spent a lot of time with customers over these last three months and really what’s clear to me is they’re gravitating towards partners. They trust organizations that can bring consistency, insight and stability during times like this because it’s just continued to be rapid change. And we really view markets like this as an opportunity and we’ve made purposeful investments throughout this cycle to ensure we’re positioned ahead of the next inflection.

So in short, we’re investing, listening and executing, delivering value for our customers and shareholders regardless of the broader environment.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Weatherby from Wells Fargo. Your line is alive.

Chris Wetherbee — Analyst, Wells Fargo

Hey, thanks. Good morning. I guess I wanted to pick up a little bit on some of the comments you made about TL rated freight. Maybe think about the broader truckload market and what it might mean in terms of volume shift back over. It seems like maybe on the margin you’re seeing that you noted regulatory improvement was kind of moving in your favor there. So I guess as you think about the rest of the year, beyond what you’ve seen so far in April, I guess what does that opportunity look like? What would you expect to see it in terms of a tailwind from a volume standpoint?

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey Chris, Seth here again. I’ll talk through the truckload side and then Eddie can make some comments on just some of that truckload rated business moving into asset base. But on the truckload side, most enterprise shippers are responding positively and granting increases where needed because they’re seeing what’s going on with capacity. We’ve seen a shift in the shorter term rate increases as well as mini bids to mitigate our spot exposure while maintaining the service that our customers expect.

And like I said in my previous comment, demand is more stable but those supply constraints continue due to increased costs, the regulatory pressure, all those things that are going on. So spot rates are currently exceeding contract by 15 to 20% normalized for fuel. We’ve seen contract increases in the low to mid single digits in the first quarter year over year. And we expect as we move through second and third quarter it’s probably going to be in the low to mid double digit range. This is from the truckload side.

So moving forward we’re going to continue to optimize our truckload Volumes to bring on profitable new business and shed some business that we can’t profitably execute on. But I’ve been really impressed by the team. If you look at our asset lights, in the first quarter we delivered 3 million in profitability and all of last year we only delivered 1.5 million throughout all of 2025. So really proud of the team, the execution there. I’ll turn it over to Eddie to talk about some of the truckload rated shipments moving into the asset based network.

Eddie Sorg — Chief Commercial Officer

Yeah, Chris, this is Eddie. You know Seth kind of mentioned this earlier but you know, we have seen, you know, a tighter truckload capacity market that’s producing higher spot rates and then you combine that with higher fuel prices and we’re starting to see some early signs of business push into our integrated logistics solutions and ltl. Really the first signs in our transactional markets, you know, we’re up to over 250,000 quotes a day. So we’re seeing we have an opportunity to get early signs of potential spillover back from truckload to ltl.

It’s really just given us a great opportunity to find the highest quality revenue that’s in those opportunities and then deploy whether it’s dynamic pricing or one of our volume quote facilities to kind of capture that business where it makes sense in our network. So I wouldn’t say it’s a robust spillover, but there are some early signs of some of that coming back to the LTL and our integrated logistics offerings.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Seidel from TD Cowan. Your line is live.

Jason Seidl — Analyst, TD Cowan

Thanks operator. Morning gentlemen. Wanted to talk a little bit about your comment that we’re sort of not yet near the mid cycle. You know, your clearly getting much better pricing right now, which is pretty impressive as we move towards the sort of mid cycle demand stage. Where do you see pricing going, all of the things being equal in the truckload space?

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Hey Jason, this is Seth again.

Jason Seidl — Analyst, TD Cowan

Hey, good morning.

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey. On, on. Core. Core LTL pricing continues to improve and that’s really supported by the rational market. The disciplined actions that we’ve continued to take even despite the softer environment. We expect that discipline to hold as market conditions evolve. You saw in our notes that deferred contract renewals increased 6% in the quarter. That’s our strongest result since the third quarter of 2022. And that really reinforces the confidence and durability of those core customer relationships that we had.

The customers are still with us just shipping less as we talked about throughout this cycle. So as volumes recover and Capacity tightens, we expect that pricing discipline to persist and ultimately translate into further rate improvement. And also as volume improves, we expect more core business from our current customers. Because what I mentioned was the retention stats earlier. Now what Eddie touched on a little bit ago was our strategy for the dynamic quoted freight. It’s unchanged, but its effectiveness improves as that quote pool expands like we talked about at our investor day.

So larger quote pool gives us more selection within the targeted freight universe and that allows us to choose what freight fits best in our network to deliver high quality pricing and profitability. And those shipments have trended a little bit heavier as that pool pool has expanded over the past six months. I’d say as that optionality increases, we get that better pricing. But also as we look at our core pipeline, it continues to be a lot stronger. So as we get new business wins, we get flexibility to optimize, mix and maximize incremental profit contributions.

So we’ve had a long history of pricing discipline. We evaluate books of business based on how each account performs in the network, not a single pricing metric. And we remain focused on profitable growth, ensuring that we’re properly paid for the value that we deliver. And we continue to make targeted investments in service efficiency, enhancing the customer value proposition while improving our cost structure. And ArcBest view. Rolling out in May is just another example of that. The feedback’s been great from our customers thus far, so we’re going to continue to focus on serving our customers efficiently and make sure that we’re pricing discipline as we move through the cycle.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Group from Wolf Research. Your line is live.

Scott Group — Analyst, Wolf Research

Hey, thanks. Good morning. So with the OR guide for Q2 outperforming seasonality, any way to put some, you know, additional color there and what’s driving that? How much of that’s sort of the flow through a fuel versus maybe tonnage getting better. Just any, any thoughts there? And then just one more follow up on fuel. If I look back at prior periods where we’ve seen such big increases in diesel costs, we’ve typically seen a bigger spike in rev per shipment trends, rev 400 weight trends. Is there anything different about sort of how we should think about fuel for you right now than maybe what we’ve thought about in the past?

J. Matthew Beasley — Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Scott. Hey, it’s Matt. So you know, just thinking about some of the sequential trends as we, we think about first quarter moving to second quarter, you know, really it’s, it’s across the board where we’re seeing outperformance versus what we would expect. And so that’s, you know, if you look at revenue per day, shipments per day, daily tonnage weight per shipment, revenue per hundredweight, you know, all of those as we look to the current projection for the second quarter are outperforming where we see the 10 year history.

And so certainly fuel was a factor in the first quarter. Some of the fuel volatility we still would have been within our guidance range for the quarter even without the fuel changes. You know, the fuel changes are not the primary driver of the outperformance in the second quarter. They are, you know, a driver of the performance that we’re projecting. But really it’s strength across the business, both on the commercial side and on the yield side that are driving the sequential or performance. Again, you know, if we look at the 10 year history, we see around 350 basis points of improvement when we move from the first quarter to the second quarter.

But when you take into account the strength that we’re seeing, again like I said across the board, across revenue shipments, tonnage weight per shipment, revenue per hundredweight, pricing, take all that together and that puts us in that 4 to 500 basis points, points of improvement that we’re projecting for the quarter.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Oliver from Goldman Sachs. Your line is live.

Jordan Alliger — Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Yeah, hi. Morning. I just wanted to come back to sort of the weight per shipment. I know you guys have mentioned, you know, you’re changing freight profile and mix is a big part of it. Of course, historically wait for shipments often been correlated to improvement in the economy. So I’m just wondering, is some part of this weight per shipment strength that you’re seeing even as we go into April related in your mind to the economy or is it truly just the mix shift? Thanks.

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey Jordan, it’s Seth here and good morning. Our weight per shipment on our core business is still being impacted by just the softer manufacturing economy that can cause shippers just to reduce the shipment size like we’ve discussed in the past. But as I mentioned, our retention’s in a great place. So we’re starting to see our core business start to produce more. I mentioned dynamic shipments have been trending heavier, so that’s going to impact weight per shipment. That really is the direct result.

As we’ve expanded that quote pool, it’s allowed us to be more selective in real time, optimizing our yield, our network and our profile and profitability. So that increased visibility and optionality of that larger quote pool really allows us to accept certain heavier shipments that fit well within our network in April, year over year wait for shipment, it’s up about 6% and that’s impacted by the heavier dynamic shipments as well as a little bit of those truckload rated shipments that Eddie mentioned earlier as well.

So we’re beginning to see modest improvements. But I would say it’s still pretty early there. As a reminder, we’re impacted a little bit more than others on weight per shipment because the UPAC service that we offer, with housing market where it is and interest rates, it’s resulted in fewer household good moves which are generally smaller, smaller amount of shipments, but just heavier in nature. And normally from first to second quarter we see our UPAC business start to improve, but it’s still below historical norms, so we got a lot of operating leverage there.

So we believe that more of this truckload freight is going to move back into the LTL space as capacity normalizes in the truckload space that we’ve mentioned already as well. And also our pipeline within our managed business continues to grow. And as managed grows, that feeds our other service lines and we get to select the best freight for the network. And really we’ve been through a lot of cycles in our history and there’s still a lot of uncertainty out there. But what I’ve been proud of the team is they focused on execution, staying close to our customers and being disciplined with price because we are built for any environment, whether it’s up, down, any way.

What customers appreciate in these conversations is they’re able to partner with us and say, hey, my fuel is going up or this is going on or I can’t find capacity. We partner with our customers because we want to say yes. That’s really what our strategy is. So we have one of the best teams in the industry and I’m confident in our ability to execute in the short term and the long term, regardless of the environment that’s going on.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bruce Chan from Stifel. Your line is live.

Bruce Chan — Analyst, Stifel

Yeah, thanks operator. And morning everybody. Just a question here on the asset light business. I know you’ve been pretty focused on productivity there. Seems like a good chunk of that is coming from, you know, the mix of managed business. Assuming that we’re kicking off a cycle here, how are you thinking about shipment growth and maybe the need for additional headcount in truck brokerage? And sorry if I missed this in the opening remarks, but maybe you can remind us of what the spot to contract mix looks like there too.

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey Bruce, Seth again. I’ll start out and then If Mac has anything to add, he’ll chime in as well. But I’m really proud of the team for delivering 3 million in non GAAP op income for the first quarter. Like I said earlier, we made 1.5 in all of 2025. So we started out the year strong. There was and we’re encouraged by the continued truckload capacity exits that we’ve seen. We did see strong shipment growth led by Managed who had another record quarter. And that speaks to the investments that we’ve made throughout this cycle to position Managed as a truly integrated logistics company.

Operating expenses were lower and we ended the quarter with record high productivity within asset light and also record low SG and a cost per shipment which all contributed to that improved productivity. This is due to the investments that we’ve made throughout this cycle and technology and trying to grow without having to add the headcount. And also what we’ve done to develop our employees to make sure that they’re ready for the next cycle. So shipments and revenue are strengthening in April. So we mentioned our up income range there of 1 to 3 million in our 8K.

But we continue to take actions to adjust our cost to better align resources to match business levels. But what I’m really excited about is Mac has three months under his belt. He’s been a huge addition to our team. We continue to work to improve the profitability of our account base. We’re focused on improving productivity with technology deployments. We’re in the early stages of a lot of that. So I’ll turn it over to Mac to see if he has anything to add. And

Mac Pinkerton — Chief Operating Officer

Bruce, it’s Matt. Maybe just one more thing I’ll add. So if you look at the spot versus contract mix that we had over the last year, you know, it’s pretty evenly split roughly 50 50. And that’s the level that we saw as we moved through the first quarter as well.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Wadewitz from UBS Financial. Your line is live.

Tom Wadewitz — Analyst, UBS Financial

Yeah. Great. Good morning. So wanted to circle back a bit. I know you had some questions on making pricing environment and ltl. If we look at it and say in fuel and tukey, right, you’ve got, you know, revenue per shipment. Sounds like it’s up pretty nicely in April, but it also sounds like a lot of that is fuel. So when do you think? Like what’s the lag we should consider with the stronger the 6% contract renewals and also weight per shipment. If you think of it and say X fuel revenue per shipment, right.

Because it sounds like that was maybe kind of flattish if you look at April versus March. So just I guess more perspective on when do we see that improvement in, you know, pricing drivers flow through to revenue per shipment ex fuel, you know, what’s the timeline on that?

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks Tom. This is Seth. And then I’ll, I’ll start and then turn it over to Eddie. So I just wanted to hit on fuel a little bit because fuel surcharge is really just one component of pricing generally protects us with our fuel surcharge mechanism. As fuel price increase and then as a decrease it protects or helps customers positively. So but fuel surcharge, it covers more than just fuel costs and that’s what I wanted to jump in because it’s propane for forklifts, it’s rail, it’s purchased transportation, it’s all those other costs that I wanted to mention.

So it’s not just on the revenue and the freight we move. We also have additional costs there. So. And I’ll turn it over to Eddie to talk about your other question.

Eddie Sorg — Chief Commercial Officer

Yeah, so I really think about from a yield perspective, this was something we really focused started focus on in the second half of last year. So with a really strong result in first quarter this year, over 6% with our increases, you know, we’re building to I think a better overall mix of business in our core ltl. And you know, obviously with the fuel prices going up, you know, it doesn’t just come with higher revenue, there’s higher costs. And the timing of the fuel surcharge and those costs sometimes makes it a little harder to see, you know, the benefit that would come from that situation.

But overall we feel really good about the mix of business we have. The yield discipline is strong. We’re committed to continue to improve on our prices with ltl. And what gives us confidence in that is, you know, we’ve had a strong growth in 2025, that’s continuing 2026. Our sales pipeline is robust and continues to be strong, especially with our managed solutions. You know, we’ve mentioned it several times now, but an expanding quote pool is going to allow us to really further adjust our business mix to get us the most profitable business for our, for our systems and our network.

So feel really good about where we are from a yield perspective. And you know, even with fuel potentially changing up or down, our yield fundamentals are going to continue to stay strong.

Tom Wadewitz — Analyst, UBS Financial

Okay, thank you. And then if I just.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Ossenbeck from J.P. Morgan. Your line is live

Brian Ossenbeck — Analyst, J.P. Morgan

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just a question on hey, good morning Seth. Just on the maybe Matt can chime in too. Just on the all the headlines we’ve seen in terms of truckload brokerage with the risks of chameleon carriers with bigger focus coming up with Montgomery case, of course, and how that safety risk might be extended or liability risk might be extended to truckload brokers. Just want to see if there’s anything you’re doing with your carrier base based on some of the recent headlines and what’s coming down the pipe from potentially regulatory and even from the Supreme Court.

And then you know, if that were to go through and the the court finds that the liability should be extended to the brokers, what do you think that does for the industry in general? So I know there’s a lot of moving parts out there, but clearly this looks like it’s going to be something we talk about for a while. So love to get your thoughts on that. Thank you.

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yep. Yeah, Brian, thanks. This is Seth here. So I’ll answer your first question. Just about everything that’s been in the news there safety has really always been fundamentally how AHRQ best operates. And while the recent media attentions really focused on specific situations, we really remain focused on disciplined execution and consistent operating practices that align with the applicable laws and regulations. So we use a structured compliance based process to select and monitor third party carriers with ongoing visibility into authority, insurance, safety status and carriers that don’t meet those requirements are not eligible to move freight for us.

So the FMCSA provides this national regulatory framework for carrier safety. We operate within that obviously, but we also invest in systems and processes that support a disciplined risk management operational consistency. So at this time we don’t expect these developments to change our outlook or our approach to safety and compliance because it’s already embedded in our operation and reflected in how we run the business. So our customers expect us to operate safely and responsibly and we continue to engage in open and constructive dialogue with our customers to support their long term growth goals.

So as far as truckload capacity and what’s going on with all that, when you look at the continued supply chain exits of the truckload factors that’s due to bankruptcies, these regulatory things that you mentioned, there’s also a lot of things going on with Delilah’s Law non domicile cdls, there’s just a lot going on overall. So really at the end of the day what we do is focus on things we can control, partner with customers to navigate this uncertainty and we believe we’re positioned with our service being in a great place to lead with the great opportunities and have great conversations with our customers.

So I hope that answers your question. Brian,

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Stephanie Moore from Jeffries. Your line is live.

Stephanie Moore — Analyst, Jeffries

Hi, good morning. Thanks everybody. Good to talk to you. I wanted to maybe talk about, talk about your 2028 targets. Obviously when you originally gave those targets, the macro or the underlying freight environment was in a different position than it seems to be today. So maybe just talk a bit about progress towards those targets with a bit of a firmer macro or what appears to be a freight environment. Maybe talk a little bit as you as you think about those targets. Thanks.

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Hey Stephanie. Good morning. We have confidence in our long term view and the targets we outlined at investor day. We didn’t expect a significant freight recovery in 2026 in those targets. So we’re seeing sign recovery before we anticipated. But we still need to see more consistent demand. We’re encouraged by the truckload exits that we mentioned earlier and three positive months of PMI reading. Obviously the war in Iran and corresponding increases in fuel could impact inflation interest rates. But we are seeing the effects of the supply side and we’re looking as we’re looking for demand to continue to inflect.

Really when I think about our business across both asset based and asset light, our focus is building a scalable, disciplined operation that can fully capitalize not only on our initiatives but also the operating leverage that we have within the business. So over the past several years we’ve invested a lot in our network and technology productivity remain very disciplined on pricing as Eddie mentioned earlier. And as the market improves, we expect those investments to translate into greater network density, better utilization of excess capacity, more freight per stop and that’s going to allow incremental volume to flow through resources that are already in place.

So at investor day we outlined the earnings potential as the market inflects. And in our asset based business we modeled about 100 basis points of non GAAP operating operating ratio improvement versus 2024 with an upside of up to 280 basis points. If induct industrial production returns to trend and housing normalizes and truckload spot rates improve an asset light. We modeled a $10 million improvement in Expedite and a $75 of net revenue per shipment per year with upside potential of up to 30 million.

As expedite manufacturing recovers and truckload truckload rates normalize and then truckload brokers we’ve talked about for every $10 of margin per shipment expansion and equates to 3.5 million of incremental profit to the bottom line. So as volumes inflect, we expect this incremental margin to improve and we feel good that we’re on pace to achieve our long term goals that we outlined at Invest.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ari Rosa from Citigroup. Your line is live.

Ari Rosa — Analyst, Citigroup

Hi, good morning. So the connection wasn’t great there, so I may have missed a little bit of that lecture. But Seth, you’ve now been in the CEO seat for, for a few months. Obviously the business isn’t new to you, but I’d love to hear reflections after a few months in that seat and how you’re thinking about potential things differently from how Judy was running the business. Obviously you have the long term target and, and we understand there’s quite a lot that implies to where we’re where we currently stand.

But just kind of broaden that out and talk about how you’re thinking about managing the business and what your objectives are that might differ from your predecessor. Thanks.

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Perfect. Thanks Ari. And good morning. Well, I want to start with that. I believe in the strategy of our company and also our ability to achieve those long term targets that we outlined at Investor Day in September. I always go back to the customer and in my customer conversations, our solutions resonate with them. We really differentiate ourselves in the marketplace as a logistics partner with assets and that’s really different from a lot of what our competition does. And by finding ways to say yes to our customers, we feel that’s going to position us well for greater revenue, profit and account retention.

So really what I’ve been focused on is optimizing our sales resources, putting people in the best position to succeed, win and grow business as well as grow these long term relationships that we’ve had. We continue to optimize our cost structure. We’ve also worked to improve customer experience and that’s why I think when ArcBestView launches in May, it’s really going to be differentiated in the marketplace and, and allow us to give our customers the information that they’re searching for in a self serve manner.

So in my first three months in the role, I really believe accelerating our strategy will drive sustained value creation for customers and shareholders and the environment. It’s just been unpredictable really throughout the last five or six years. But I can tell you why I’m confident in the future. Our strategy sounds, we’ve navigated this market downturn very well. We’re ready for any changes that lie ahead. We have a tremendous amount of operating leverage in the business when the market does turn.

This team focuses on things in their control and we view these times as opportunities. We positioned ourselves for growth with all the investments we’ve made over the last five years as well as margin expansion with the investments in the asset based network technology. I just feel like we have so much opportunity in front of us and we’re seeing it through strong pipeline numbers. New business continue acceleration of our cross selling efforts. Our tech enabled initiatives continue to progress at a much faster clip.

I’ve been really proud of the tech team and what they’ve been able to deliver for our business and our customers. And we continue to win external awards which to me really validate the strategy and tells me about the value we’re bringing to the market differentiated and that’s going to allow us to win in the short term and long term. So my goal is really to accelerate that progress we’ve already made. But I can tell you none of this would be possible without our amazing people. So our people are the heart of our success.

I spend a lot of time with our employees. I really couldn’t be more prouder of the work they do for our customers day in and day out. So we feel we’re positioned to deliver on our long term targets, deliver value for our customers which will ultimately translate to shareholder value creation.

Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Ken Huckster from Bank of America. Your line is live.

Ken Hoexter — Analyst, Bank Of America

Hey, great. Good morning. Hey Seth and Matt. So just want to talk about the stickiness of the dynamic freight a bit. Maybe in the past you got caught with too much and you wanted, you know, as you wanted to switch to capacity, your own freight. Did I hear you have a newer process that enables maybe more fluidity? Maybe you could talk about the thoughts on your excess capacity now and then I guess to Stephanie you mentioned that maybe things were picking up a bit faster. So just want to understand thoughts on the timeframe from the rising ism to get that shipment growth.

And given the competitive environment, I don’t know if others are being more competitive and that’s the impact on shipments near term. So just maybe a couple things rolled up in there. But any thoughts?

Seth Runser — President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, perfect. Thanks Ken. I appreciate that question. I’ll respond then. If anyone on my team has any comments, they can chime in as well. But I’ll start with dynamic first. Our business is primarily core, so that’s really where we spend a lot of our time as core published business that Eddie mentioned earlier. So the dynamic mix is what’s changed a little bit. And that’s really because of just the growth in the quote pool. Our actual shipment count that we’re targeting is relatively consistent.

It’s just the mix has changed because we have a bigger quote pool and we can optimize our network. So what’s important to understand, and I know I’ve mentioned this before, is we optimize our mix on a daily basis and it’s based on profit maximization, based on current market prices and available capacity. So as capacity starts to go down, we expect our optionality to improve. And the more that we expand that quote pool, the more selective and real time we can be. And that’s what I think is really important.

So we mentioned at Investor Day, but since the inception of dynamic, that quote pool has grown our revenue per ship and has improved over 50% as that quote pool has expanded. And I’ve said this in the past as well, but our peers use, you know, three PLs to make those adjustments. But we are the three PL, and that’s what’s important to understand is being a three PL with assets improves optionality for our customers. So as far as excess capacity and our ability to scale, we really break that into three buckets.

People, equipment and real estate. On the people side, we’ve invested a lot in labor planning tools, and we feel like we’re positioned to have a strong service summer as well as the remainder of the year. So we feel great about that. Equipment. We have one of the newest fleets on the road because we’ve been disciplined with our investments through this cycle. And then real estate, we’ve added over 800 doors to the network with continued enhancements, ongoing. So we feel like we’re positioned very well.

And all these optimization efforts that we talk about as we improve productivity, when business volumes do inflect, we’re just going to need to recruit less people, which is good because it allows us to say yes to our customers.

Operator

That concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Amy Mendenhall for closing remarks.

Amy Mendenhall — Vice President, Investor Relations & Treasury

Just wanted to thank everyone for joining us today. We certainly appreciate your interest in ArcBest and hope everyone has a great day.

Operator

That concludes today’s meeting. You may now disconnect.