DOT Freight Index Falls in December

The Department of Transportation’s freight transportation services index for December fell 4.1% from a year earlier but did not change from November, DOT said Thursday.

The December TSI fell to 96.2%, the same as November's figure, which had fallen 6.8% from a year earlier, DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics said in its monthly report.

The reading was the lowest for the month of December since 1996, when it was 89.1, and the year-to-year December downturn was the fourth largest such decline in the 20 years for which the TSI has been calculated, and the third largest decline in the past decade.

The index increased 2.9% over the last seven months, beginning in June. The freight index is down 13.2% in five years from December 2004 and 8.4% in 10 years from December 1999, DOT said.

The TSI is a seasonally adjusted monthly index measuring the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, including railroad, air, truck, inland waterways, pipeline and local transit.