COLUMBUS, IN — After a bit of a drought, commercial trailer net orders marked an improvement in September, says ACT Research.

Net orders were up 31 percent month-over-month, and 22 percent year-over-year.

Total trailer factory shipments were up nearly 65 percent YoY, supported by solid production and inventory reduction.

However, despite the improvement, "production is still outpacing new order intake," said ACT’s director of CV Transportation Analysis and Research, Frank Maly.

While this is reducing the backlog, Maly said, "we cannot divorce ourselves from seasonality: orders are always weak and backlogs always fall through the third quarter. On a seasonally adjusted basis, total trailer backlogs have been virtually unchanged since May," he noted.