DAT Freight Rates Scraper

DAT Freight Rates Scraper

Scrape DAT Trendlines freight rates, load-to-truck ratios, fuel prices, and trend percentages on a schedule. Pull national rate history, state-level supply/demand indicators, and diesel benchmarks into one flat dataset. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

DAT Trendlines is the industry benchmark for North American truckload pricing, but the web dashboards are built for manual lookups, not for feeding models or spreadsheets. This Actor reads the public Trendlines datasets directly and returns every data point in a consistent row format, so you can track spot rates, contract rates, and capacity signals without copying and pasting. No API key or DAT login is required.

Who uses it	What they scrape DAT Freight & Analytics for
Freight brokers	Monitor spot rate movements week over week to price lanes competitively.
Logistics analysts	Feed national rate history and load-to-truck ratios into forecasting models.
Carrier sales teams	Track contract rate trends to negotiate renewal terms with shippers.
Supply chain consultants	Pull state-level capacity signals to advise clients on regional sourcing risks.

What it does

This Actor collects DAT Trendlines freight rate history, load-to-truck ratios, national trend percentages, and fuel prices, and returns each observation as a flat row tagged by dataset.

• 📈 National rate history: monthly and weekly time series of average rates per equipment, rate type, and country.
• ⚖️ Load-to-truck ratio: state and province level supply/demand indicator for dry van, flatbed, reefer, and intermodal.
• 📊 National trend percentages: week-over-week, month-over-month, and year-over-year change percentages for the national average.
• ⛽ Fuel price: current national diesel reference price updated weekly by DAT.
• 🏷️ Dataset tagging: every row carries a dataset field so you can filter and join the four datasets downstream.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with DAT Freight & Analytics data

📉 Track spot rate trends.

A freight broker runs the Actor weekly for dry van spot rates out of California and Texas to decide when to adjust lane pricing.

📊 Feed a rate forecasting model.

A logistics data scientist pulls the full national rate history monthly and joins it with load-to-truck ratios to train a predictive model.

⛽ Monitor diesel benchmarks.

A carrier CFO scrapes the fuel price dataset weekly to update internal surcharge tables without visiting the DAT dashboard.

🗺️ Compare regional capacity.

A supply chain consultant pulls load-to-truck ratios for every Midwest state to identify tightening markets before a peak season.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No manual exports	Schedule the Actor and append fresh rates to your database every Monday morning.
Four datasets, one schema	National history, load-to-truck ratios, trend percentages, and fuel prices land in the same flat table.
State-level granularity	Filter load-to-truck ratios to the exact US states or Canadian provinces you care about.
Spot and contract rates	Pull shipper-to-broker spot, broker-to-carrier spot, and contract rates in one run.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets DAT Freight & Analytics the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	DAT Freight Rates Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When DAT Freight & Analytics changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor by picking which Trendlines datasets to scrape, then narrow the results by equipment category, rate type, country, period granularity, and state codes before a single row lands in your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.025 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.50
1,000 results	$25.00
10,000 results	$250.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the DAT Freight Rates Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to DAT Freight & Analytics through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/dat-freight-rates-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that you have selected at least one dataset and that your equipment, rate type, country, and period filters are not too restrictive. The load-to-truck ratio dataset ignores the country and period filters, so try running it alone to confirm connectivity.

Why are load-to-truck ratio rows missing for some states?

DAT publishes ratios only for states and provinces with enough activity. If a region has very low volume, it may not appear in the feed. Leave the state codes filter empty to see every region DAT returns.

Why do I see fewer rows than expected in national history?

The number of rows depends on the combinations of equipment, rate type, country, and period granularity you selected. Each combination produces one time series. Broaden your filters to pull more data.

The run timed out. What should I do?

Reduce the number of datasets or filter combinations in a single run. You can also increase the run timeout in the Actor's advanced settings on Apify.

Why are the trend percentages showing null values?

DAT may not publish a percentage change for every period, especially at the start of a time series when the prior period is unavailable. Nulls are expected and represent missing reference points.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a DAT login or API key to scrape Trendlines?	No. The Actor reads the public Trendlines endpoints that power the DAT web dashboards. You do not need a DAT account or an API key.
What is the difference between shipper-to-broker spot and broker-to-carrier spot?	Shipper-to-broker spot is the rate a shipper pays a broker to move a load. Broker-to-carrier spot is the rate the broker pays the carrier. The spread between them is the broker margin.
How far back does the national rate history go?	Monthly buckets typically reach back about three years. Weekly buckets go back roughly one year. The exact window depends on what DAT publishes at the time of the run.
Can I pull load-to-truck ratios for Canadian provinces?	Yes. The load-to-truck ratio dataset covers US states and Canadian provinces. Leave the state codes filter empty to get every region DAT publishes.
What equipment types are available?	Dry van, flatbed, reefer (refrigerated), and intermodal. You can select one, several, or all of them in the equipment filter.
Does the Actor return contract rates as well as spot rates?	Yes. The rate types filter lets you include contract rates alongside the two spot rate types in the national history dataset.
How often is the fuel price updated?	DAT updates the national diesel reference price weekly. Schedule the Actor to run on the same cadence to keep your records current.
Can I get week-over-week and month-over-month change percentages?	Yes. The national trend percentages dataset returns week-over-week, month-over-month, and year-over-year changes for the national average rate.
What output formats are supported?	The Apify platform stores results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML. You choose the format when you export or via an API call.
Can I schedule this Actor to run automatically?	Yes. Apify schedules let you run the Actor on a cron expression, so you can pull fresh rates every Monday morning or on any other cadence.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by DAT Solutions, LLC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.