DOT Freight Transportation Services Index Improves in August
The Department of Transportation’s freight transportation services index rose 1.2% in August from a year earlier, the sixth year-to-year gain, but slipped from July, DOT said Thursday.
The freight TSI fell 0.6% from July, its first such decline in three months, DOT’s Bureau of Trade Statistics said in its monthly report.
The monthly reading has improved in 12 of the past 15 months but is down 1.9% year-to-date and the 97.6 reading was lower than every other August since 1997, when it read 94.8.
The index is 4.4% higher than its recent low of 93.5 in May 2009, when it was at its lowest level in 12 years. The TSI uses the year 2000 as its base-year, with a reading of 100.
The August reading was 13.5% below its historic peak of 112.9, reached in May 2006, 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.
