The Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI), which is based on the amount of freight carried by the for-hire transportation industry, rose 1.2% in May from April, rising for the first month after two consecutive months of decline, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ (BTS). From May 2022 to May 2023 the index fell 1.4%.
The level of for-hire freight shipments in May measured by the Freight TSI (137.6) was 2.5% below the all-time high level of 141.2 in August 2019. BTS’ TSI records begin in 2000.
The Freight TSI measures the month-to-month changes in for-hire freight shipments by mode of transportation in tons and ton-miles, which are combined into one index. The index measures the output of the for-hire freight transportation industry and consists of data from for-hire trucking, rail, inland waterways, pipelines and air freight. The TSI is seasonally-adjusted to remove regular seasonal movement, which enables month-to-month comparisons.
Analysis: The Freight TSI increased in May due to seasonally adjusted increases in rail intermodal, water, air freight, pipeline, and trucking, while rail carloads were down.
The May increase came in the context of mixed results for other indicators. The Federal Reserve Board Industrial Production (IP) Index was down 0.2% in May, reflecting decreases of 0.4% in mining and 1.8% in utilities while manufacturing grew by 0.1%. Housing starts were up 21.7% while personal income increased by 0.4%.
The Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing (ISM) index was down 0.2 points to 46.9, indicating a decline in manufacturing.
Although the May Passenger TSI is being withheld because of the previously cited difficulty of estimating airline passenger travel and other components, the April index is now being released. The index increased 0.5% from March to April. Seasonally adjusted transit and rail passenger increased while air passenger declined.
The Passenger TSI has now exceeded its level in March 2020 —the first month of the pandemic— for 23 months in a row but remains below its pre-pandemic level (February 2020) for the 38th consecutive month.
Trend: The May freight index increase followed two consecutive months of decline, leaving the index 1.5% below the February level. This was only the second increase in the last nine months, for an overall decrease of 2.4% since August 2022. It was the 12th month-over-month increase in the last 21 months, for a total increase of 2.5% since August 2021. The May Freight TSI is 10.9% above the pandemic low in April 2020; it has increased month-over-month in 21 of the 37 months since that low. The index is now 2.5% below its previous record level of 141.2 set in August 2019, despite increasing month-over-month in 21 of the 45 months since that all-time high.
Index highs and lows: For-hire freight shipments in May 2023 (137.6) were 44.8% higher than the low in April 2009 during the recession (95.0). The May 2023 level was 2.5% below the historic peak reached in August 2019 (141.2).
Year to date: For-hire freight shipments measured by the index were up 0.6% in May compared to the end of 2022 (Table 3).
Long-term trend: For-hire freight shipments are up 0.8% in the five years from May 2018 and are up 18.6% in the 10 years from May 2013.
Same month of previous year: May 2023 for-hire freight shipments were down 1.4% from May 2022.
The TSI has three seasonally-adjusted indexes that measure changes from the monthly average of the base year of 2000. The three indexes are freight shipments, passenger travel and a combined measure that merges the freight and passenger indexes.
Revisions: Monthly data has changed from previous releases due to the use of concurrent seasonal analysis, which results in seasonal analysis factors changing as each month’s data are added.
