Good news, everyone. One of the most reliable indicators of trucking industry health is back at pre-recession levels. I track my own travel on the desk calendar in my office each year and then tear off and file the final tally for comparison against past and future years.

I figure my travel schedule is as good an indicator as any. When the industry is healthy and fleets are buying trucks, OEMs and suppliers tend to launch more products and host more events to promote their existing ones.

It also generally means the magazine itself is doing well and I can afford to go to more industry events and functions. Pretty simple, really! Well, my nights away from home for work purposes this year reached pre-recession levels of 59. (I know, many of you travel a lot more than that, but that’s a pretty busy year for me).

By comparison, I was away just 27 nights during the depth of the recession in 2009 and 24 nights in 2010 as the industry was still licking its wounds. For those of you who prefer a graphical representation, I’ve taken the liberty of creating the chart below. We’ll see how the stock market responds to this news later today.