The trucking industry pushed through a 0.8% average price hike from December 2004 to January 2005. Truckload carriers drove the hardest bargain, with average prices up 1% over the same time period. Less-than-truckload rates, meanwhile, increased half a percentage point. But one-month percentage changes don't reveal the true TL vs. LTL story. When we compare the three-month period ending January 2005 to the same three months last year, we see that TL carriers raised prices 4.9% while LTL prices grew 8.1%. That trend has left TL and LTL price indexes standing at 109 and 120, respectively. Remember, our indexes are based to 100 in 2001, which means TL prices are up 9% and LTL is up 20% from 2001 price levels.

After a surprisingly sharp take-off in December, average price inflation for shipping freight on scheduled flights leveled off at a more comfortable cruising altitude in January. Recall that in December the price index for scheduled airfreight service hit a record high of 116.3, which meant prices were up 16.3% from 2001 levels. But in January, prices for scheduled airfreight service fell 3.2% to 112.6, back to average levels seen in the July-to-November time period. Meanwhile, domestic air couriers increased their average prices 4.1% from a month earlier and 9.3% from the same month a year ago. International air couriers hiked prices 5.9% and 9% over the same time period. Whether or not these price hikes will stick remains to be seen.

A U.S. economic recoveryis helping fuel a cyclical upturn in prices charged for shipping freight on inland waterways. In January the average price index for those services increased 3.2% from the previous month and 11.9% from the same month a year earlier. That may seem high, but not compared to January 2001, when the inland waterways price index rose 12.6%, or to January 1996, which was up 23% compared to year-earlier levels. Deep-sea freight companies, by contrast, increased average year-on-year prices by 4.7% in January 2005, 6.2% in January 2004, and 21.9% in January 2003. Wrapping up this watery roundup, prices for shipping on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway registered a 2% hike from January 2004 to January 2005.

The pulp and paper industry leads the way on the inflationary front when it comes to price hikes for shipping via rail. From December 2004 to January 2005, prices for hauling pulp and paper products increased 8.2%. That was the highest monthly increase among all commodities tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' producer price survey. Shippers of coal, meanwhile, saw carload rates increase 4.7%, while rates for chemicals rose 4.6. In sharp contrast, average prices for hauling transportation equipment and primary metal products fell by a respective 1.3% and 1.7%. When we examine changes from January 2004, pulp and paper still top the price-hike rankings, with a 14.9% year-on-year increase.