ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Lately it seems anyone who is in the trucking business has decided to earn a few bucks in the logistics game, too.

And while this had been a side of the transportation business offering tremendous growth, for the first time in over a decade transport spending trends seem to have reversed.

Freight shippers in the U.S. actually cut the amount of money they spent to move and/or store goods by US$33 billion last year — the first decline in logistics spending since 1991.

At the same time these shippers also spent $10 billion above what they did the year prior on traditional trucking services, a new study shows.

The latest annual “State of Logistics Report,” which is compiled by independent transportation consultant Rosalyn Wilson and Robert Delaney, a vice-president at Cass Information Systems, says shippers cut their inventories in a slowing economy at a time when falling interest rates also reduced their borrowing costs.