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PARTIAL (attributed-quote extract, not full verbatim transcript). CEO Derek Leathers: 'The structural capacity attrition we've been talking about for several quarters is playing out as predicted'; long-haul truckload employment below pre-COVID. Fleet growth guidance CUT to 16-18% from 23-28% while net capex was RAISED to $215-250M — and Wolfe's Scott Group asked management to reconcile exactly that.

Summary

Werner's Q2 FY2026 call supplies the second first-party corroboration that truckload capacity is attriting on the driver side ("long-haul truckload employment has dropped to below pre-COVID levels"; "qualified driver hires are more difficult"), and it does so from a carrier that discounts its own headline driver-shortage numbers elsewhere. The load-bearing detail for the equipment question: Werner cut full-year average fleet growth guidance to 16–18% from 23–28% while raising net capex to $215–250M from $185–225M — and Wolfe Research's Scott Group asked management to reconcile the two directly, naming the 2027 EPA pre-buy as the possible confound. Management's answer attributes the capex to fleet age ("take some bigger bites quicker in the back half"), not to volume growth, and describes the EPA change as "more relief than a delay." Results: revenue $933.9M (+24% YoY), adjusted EPS $0.22 (vs $0.23 consensus), adjusted operating income +67% to $27.6M, operating margin 3.0%.

⚠ This clipping is partial. investing.com serves the full transcript but the fetch layer refuses verbatim reproduction on copyright grounds — a constraint already recorded in _meta/SOURCE_RELIABILITY.md (2026-07-16 entry). What follows is a targeted attributed-quote extraction; every quoted line is a direct quote from the named speaker on the linked page. Portions of the prepared remarks and Q&A outside these topics were not retrieved. The Scott Group question is paraphrased where marked; management's answer is quoted.

Transcript (attributed-quote extract)

Driver supply, capacity attrition, enforcement, contract renewals

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): "The structural capacity attrition we've been talking about for several quarters is playing out as predicted."

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): "Long-haul truckload employment has dropped to below pre-COVID levels."

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): "Qualified driver hires are more difficult...that market is tightening."

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): "Enforcement efforts are continuing...greater agency collaboration...will further accelerate enforcement."

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): "We have been successful securing low to mid-single-digit increases in contract renewals."

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): On dedicated revenue per truck per week guidance — "We are raising our full year guidance from a range of flat to up 3% to up 3% to 5%."

Management also attributed capacity removal to CDL school closures, ELD provider exits, and cabotage enforcement.

Fleet, equipment, and capital expenditure

Revised full-year guidance: average truck fleet growth cut to 16%–18% (from 23%–28%); net capex raised to $215M–$250M (from $185M–$225M).

Chris Wikoff (EVP, Treasurer and CFO): "TTS average trucks totaled 8,712 for the quarter, a 16% increase."

Chris Wikoff (EVP, Treasurer and CFO): "The TTS fleet ended the quarter at 8,695 trucks, down 4% sequentially."

Chris Wikoff (EVP, Treasurer and CFO): "Dedicated fleet was up 2,110 trucks from year-end, a 44% increase."

Chris Wikoff (EVP, Treasurer and CFO): "Adjusted operating margin for the logistics segment was -1.3%, a 400 basis points decline."

Analyst Q&A — the fleet-guide-down / capex-up reconciliation

Scott Group (Wolfe Research): "I just want to understand a little bit the lower fleet guide, but the higher CapEx guide, and especially with, I think you said you're doing pre-buy, but I thought EPA is getting pushed out a little bit."

(Group also asked whether Werner might grow its owner-operator fleet as a lighter-asset alternative.)

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): "The fleet age is up a little bit right now...We've decided to take some bigger bites quicker in the back half of the year so that our fleet's in the best possible position."

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): "There's some, I would call it more relief than a delay, Scott. There's relief from the new engine as it relates to the non-compliance penalties...The longer we can exist with known technologies at known pricing and freshen our fleet a little bit along the way..."

Derek Leathers (Chairman and CEO): On owner-operators — "It is something that we're leaning into more closely...We think there's some very high quality owner-operators out there."

Chris Wikoff (EVP, Treasurer and CFO): The higher capex aims to bring "the average age of that truck fleet down to targeting closer to mid-2s by the end of the year," while Werner would "still expect to be free cash flow positive for the full year" despite elevated capital spending, at "upper single digits" as a percentage of revenue.

Reported results