(The following story by Thomas L. Gallagher appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on November 12, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The output of the freight transportation industry declined 0.5 percent in September from August, blunting a three-month long recovery, according to a report Thursday from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
The agency’s Freight Transportation Services Index, which includes data from for-hire trucking, rail, inland waterways, pipelines and air freight, fell to 95.7, the lowest level for September since September 1996 when it was 87.7.
The Freight TSI has now declined in 10 of the past 14 months and in five of the nine months in 2009 despite the three consecutive monthly increases that began in June, BTS said. It had increased 2.8 percent between May and August.
The September Freight TSI of 95.7 is a 2.3 percent increase from the recent low of 93.5 reached in May. In May, the index was at its lowest level in more than a decade since June 1997. The Freight TSI is down 15.2 percent from its historic peak of 112.9 reached in May 2006.
The 4.6 percent decline in the first nine months of 2009 was the largest for the January-to-September period since a 5.9 percent decline for the first nine months of 2000.
The 9.9 percent decline in the Freight TSI from September 2008 to September 2009 was the largest September-to-September decline in the 20 years for which the TSI is calculated.
The freight index is also down 13 percent in the five years from September 2004. The index is down 8 percent in the 10 years from September 1999.
The TSI is a seasonally adjusted index that measures changes from the monthly average of the base year of 2000. It includes historic data from 1990 to the present. Release of the October index is scheduled for Dec. 9.