ArcBest Corporation

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ARCB's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I will now turn it over to Amy Mendenhall, Vice President, Treasury and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I'm here today with Seth Runzer, our President and CEO, and Matt Beasley, our Chief Financial Officer. Other members of our Executive Leadership Team will also be available during the Q&A session. Before we begin, please note that some of the comments we make today will include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are detailed in the forward-looking statement section of our earnings release and SEC filing. To provide meaningful comparisons, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures that are outlined and described in the tables of our earnings release. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures are provided in the additional information section of the presentation slides. You can access the conference call slide deck on our website at arcb.com and our 8-K filed earlier this morning or follow along on the webcast. And now, I will turn the call over to Seth.

Thank you, Amy, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter brought a challenging operating environment with severe winter weather, higher fuel prices, and continued uncertainty. Even so, we remain focused on what we can control, executing our long-term strategy with discipline and advancing initiatives that support profitable growth, efficiency, and innovation. I am incredibly proud of how the ARCBEST team responded. In a dynamic environment, they stayed disciplined, remained close to our customers, and continued delivering flexible, efficient, and integrated solutions to meet evolving needs. Customer demand has remained steady, and we continue to see improvement in our pipeline. While the timing and pace of a broader recovery remains difficult to predict, conditions are becoming more constructive. Leading indicators of manufacturing activity have moved into expansion, which is supportive of future freight demand. At the same time, truckload markets are showing early signs of tightening as capacity continues to exit the industry, driven in part by regulatory enforcement and higher operating costs. In our customer conversations, there's an increasing emphasis on execution, reliability, and visibility. And those priorities align closely with how ArcBest serves its customers. Against that backdrop, we will launch ArcBest View in May. This platform enables customers to quote, book, and track shipments across our logistics solutions through a single, intuitive interface. We developed ArcBest View in close partnership with customers, and early feedback has been very encouraging. Combined with our integrated solutions and continued progress in our digital capabilities, this platform enhances our ability to help customers respond quickly, manage complexity, and build more resilient supply chains. Importantly, this launch reflects a broader set of capabilities we have been intentionally building over time. Our investments in the network, technology, and operating tools have strengthened execution today while expanding what we can deliver for customers going forward. We continue to advance the initiatives we outlined at Investor Day, and our team remains focused and aligned on achieving our long-term targets. Let me walk you through our progress for the quarter. In the asset base segment, daily shipments increased 2% year-over-year to nearly 20,000 shipments per day. While severe winter weather affected volumes and service earlier in the quarter, service has since normalized and remains at a high level. The investments we've made in our network, equipment, and labor planning tools position us to sustain strong, consistent service through the summer months and across the balance of the year. We also remain disciplined on pricing. Deferred price increases averaged 6% in the first quarter our strongest results since the third quarter of 2022. That reflects our continued focus on revenue quality. In addition, the expansion of our dynamic quote pool has given us greater ability to make real-time pricing decisions, allowing us to be more selective and further optimize yield and profitability. Demand for our managed solutions offering continued to build during the quarter. resulting in another record performance and double-digit growth in daily shipments. This momentum reflects a stronger pipeline, deeper customer engagement, and the value our team brings as they help customers manage increasingly complex supply chains. In truckload, we remain focused on optimizing freight mix and maintaining pricing discipline. Revenue per shipment improved meaningfully both year-over-year and sequentially, driven by a tighter capacity market, higher fuel prices, and improved yield quality. Across the business, we continue to make progress on efficiency and innovation initiatives. Continuous improvement training has now been implemented across approximately 75% of the network. Teams are focused on process discipline, safety, and adoption of new tools, and that work is producing tangible results. To date, these efforts have generated $32 million in annualized cost savings, with additional benefits expected as implementation continues through the remainder of the year. We are also making meaningful progress with our city route optimization project and remain on track to complete the latest phases of deployment. This AI-enabled initiative is reducing manual work, improving route planning, and increasing asset utilization across the network. Phases 2 and 3 are expected to be fully operational in the coming months. To date, the program has delivered $15 million in annualized savings, while also improving network efficiency and service. The success we are seeing with city route optimization reflects a broader philosophy at ArcBest. We start with strong ideas, test them in the business, learn quickly, refine what works, and then scale with discipline. That approach is shaping how we deploy AI and is guiding the next wave of initiatives across our technology roadmap. Our AI strategy is deliberate and closely aligned with our business priorities. We are deploying AI where it can create meaningful operational and financial impact, and we are embedding AI capabilities into core initiatives across the organization. Just as important, we are not forcing a single solution across a complex business. Instead, we are applying the right tools for the right needs. This approach allows us to move with speed and purpose while maintaining the governance required to ensure these solutions are secure, responsible, and scalable. We believe AI delivers the most value when it strengthens our people and enables better decision-making. Our approach is practical and disciplined. We are investing in initiatives with clear return partnering externally where it accelerates progress and combining advanced technology with the network, processes, and expertise that already differentiate ArcBest. Most importantly, our customers remain at the center of this work. Digital tools are helping us serve them better, while the expertise, responsiveness, and reliability they expect from ArcBest remain unchanged. Across our technology roadmap, including AI-driven initiatives, We are aligning resources, simplifying processes, and using data more effectively to help offset inflationary cost pressures, improve decision-making, and lower our costs to serve. That work is driving meaningful productivity gains across the business. In asset light, for example, we continue to improve how we manage and optimize buy rates, particularly as market conditions shift. Initiatives such as offer collection, Automated negotiation and capacity sourcing augmentation are enabling faster, more informed decisions. Taken together, our technology and AI initiatives are strengthening our business. They are improving how we work, enhancing operational performance, and helping ArcBest execute effectively today while building for the long term. Looking ahead, we remain focused on removing barriers and simplifying how work gets done across the organization. That means enabling teams to collaborate more effectively, move faster, and stay focused on what matters most to our customers. As we continue to align and streamline our operation, we are strengthening our execution today and building a more agile, scalable ArcVest for the future. With that, I'll turn the call over to Matt to walk through the financial results.