Cass Freight Index Improves in October
The monthly Cass freight index said October shipment levels grew 2.2% over the same month last year, while shipper expenditures jumped 16.1%.
The index covers all modes of freight transportation.
Although both parts of the index grew year-over-year, they also contracted sequentially from September, although Cass said that is a typical seasonal pattern.
“The numbers appear to show that efforts by carriers to push up rates and recover increases in operating costs appear to be sticking,” the report said.
“The result is that while the weight of a shipment, averaged across all modes, has risen about 1%, year-over-year, the cost of transporting that average shipment has escalated dramatically.”
The shipments index stood at 1.081 in October, compared with a January 1990 baseline of 1.0.
By contrast, the shipper expenditure component rose to 2.295 in October and uses a similar starting point.
