BTS says Freight Transportation Service Index up 0.4 percent

Staff -- Logistics Management, 10/11/2007

WASHINGTON—The United States Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported this week that its Freight Transportation Services Index (FTSI) was up 0.4 percent in August from its performance in July, which was the index’ lowest level since February after a one-month uptick.
The BTS said this was the index’ first positive month since May and its second positive month in the last five.

The FTSI measures the month-to-month changes in the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, and it includes data from for-hire trucking, rail, inland waterways, pipelines, and air freight.

The BTS said August’s index bump to 108.9 is down 3.7 percent from its peak performance of 113.1 in November 2005 and is up 0.6 percent from its recent low of 108.3 percent in November 2006.
And for the first eightn months of 2007, the FTSI was up by less than 0.1 percent, according to BTS. It had been down 0.3 percent through the first seven months of 2007, but August’s slight rise made it positive year-to-date for the first time this year, according to BTS.   

The BTS said that the Freight Transportation Service Index includes historical data from 1990 to the present, and it is still under development and considered experimental. The seasonally-adjusted index measures changes from the monthly average of the base year of 2000, according to the BTS.