DOT Freight Index Slips in November
The Department of Transportation’s freight transportation services index for November fell 6.8% from a year ago but showed a slight increase from October, DOT said Wednesday.
The November TSI improved 1.8% from October to a reading of 96.2 reading, and was down 6.8% from a year ago, DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics said in its monthly report.
The reading was the lowest for the month of November since 1996, when it was 89.6, and the year-to -year November downturn was the largest such decline in the 20 years for which the TSI has been calculated.
The index fell 4.1% for the first 11 months of 2009. The freight index is down 13.6% in five years from November 2004 and 7.7% in 10 years from November 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.
