India's freight calendar: monthly seasonality, the Diwali drop and the monsoon effect

Every Indian logistics manager knows the calendar by instinct. Freight slows at Diwali, dips in the monsoon, and runs hot from December to March as companies close their year. Very little of this instinct has been published as numbers. This note puts numbers on it, using a full financial year of 513,216 road consignments booked by Safe & Secure Logistics (SSL), and 12 months of 76,325 hired-truck trips.

The monthly pattern

Part-truckload bookings (complete for all 12 months)

Index: the 12-month average of 33,524 = 100.

All bookings, August 2025 to March 2026 (both FTL and PTL fully captured)

The pattern has three phases.

1. The pre-festive build (September). Consignments hit 50,237, the second-highest month. Distributors stock up ahead of the festive season.
2. The festive trough (October-November). Consignments fell 23% from September to October. Tonnes fell 13%. Parcel freight, which is merchandise for retail shelves, is hit harder than industrial full loads.
3. The year-end surge (January-March). January is the busiest month by count (60,311). Goods value climbs every month from November to a March peak of ₹1,362 Cr as manufacturers and distributors close the financial year.

The Diwali week, measured

Weekly bookings, September to November 2025:

In Diwali week, PTL bookings fell 82% against the prior four-week average of about 8,900. FTL fell only 33%. Industrial full-load flows (auto plants, steel, engineering) keep running through the festival at reduced shifts. Parcel freight, which depends on trading counters that close for Diwali, stops almost completely. The recovery also takes time: PTL bookings were still 20-30% below the pre-Diwali run-rate three and four weeks later. In eastern India, Chhath follows immediately and keeps a large share of the driver and labour workforce at home.

The monsoon effect

The June PTL low (20,135, 40% below average) is the monsoon’s signature. Comparing PTL bookings delivered into each region in July-September 2025 with the October 2025-March 2026 monthly average:

The East, where monsoon disruption to highways and last-mile roads is heaviest, runs about 7% below its dry-season level. The North is flat. The sharpest single month is June, the monsoon’s onset, rather than July-September as a whole.

Weekly rhythm

Bookings are spread evenly Monday to Saturday (15.5-16.4% each). Sunday takes 4.0%. Indian road freight runs a six-day week.

What this means

• Shippers: plan festive stock movements to complete by the week before Diwali. Diwali-week capacity is thin, and the network takes about three weeks to return to normal parcel volumes.
• Carriers and fleet owners: October and May are the months to schedule maintenance and driver leave. December and June are when capacity is most valuable.
• Analysts and lenders: monthly volume, not monthly rate, is the seasonal variable in Indian road freight. A carrier’s quarterly revenue will swing with the calendar even though its rates barely move.

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