Transportation, Maritime Trade & Logistics
US Freight Transportation Services Index — Monthly
How much freight the US for-hire transportation industry moves each month, across trucking, rail, pipelines, inland waterways and air: the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' Freight Transportation Services Index.
Official statisticSource figures as of October 17, 2026Sources & methods
- Period covered
- Jan 2000 – Jul 2026
- Source figures as of
- October 17, 2026
- Geography
- United States
- Sector
- Transportation, Maritime Trade & Logistics
- Seasonal adjustment
- Seasonally adjusted
- Transformations
- Views other than the level (changes, averages, volatility) are calculated by CK Economics from these figures
- Revisions
- Replaced with the source’s latest figures whenever it revises them.
- Data status
- Current
No projectionIn backtests at 40 past dates, a statistical projection (exponential smoothing, damped trend) was not clearly better than a no-change forecast: its errors over the next 3 months were 3% larger, short of the 5% improvement needed, so none is shown. How we decide
Key figures
CK estimateIndex (2000=100) · calculated by CK Economics from U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics data
- Latest · Jul 2026
- 135.7
- −2.0% vs a year earlier1
- 5-year change
- +2.1%
- since Jul 2021, +0.4% a year2
- 10-year change
- +8.4%
- since Jul 2016, +0.8% a year2
- Record high
- 140.7
- Aug 20193
- Record low
- 94.9
- Apr 20093
- Where the latest ranks
- 77th pct.
- Higher than 77% of the other 318 observations since Jan 20004
- 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
- 2Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier; the yearly rate is the compound annual growth rate over the span.
- 3Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
- 4Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.
Methodology
The Freight Transportation Services Index measures the month's volume of freight moved by the US for-hire transportation industry: for-hire trucking (its largest part), freight rail including rail intermodal, inland waterways, pipelines (crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas) and air freight. BTS combines the modes' output measures (such as ton-miles) in a chained index, with 2000 equal to 100, and adjusts it for seasonal patterns. BTS publishes each month about two to three months after it ends and revises earlier months as source data are updated. Values come from the FRED copy of the BTS series. It measures volume, not price. Projection: none. CK Economics backtests a statistical projection of this series (exponential smoothing with a damped trend) by refitting it at past dates and scoring its forecasts against what happened. Its errors over the next three months were not at least 5% smaller than those of the better of a no-change forecast and repeating the same month a year earlier, so no projection is shown.
Source
U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation Services Index, freight (TSIFRGHT), seasonally adjusted, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: https://www.bts.gov/tsi and https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TSIFRGHT — figures as published on 17 October 2026.
All data
| Period | Value | Change y/y |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 2026 | 135.7 | −2.0% |
| Jun 2026 | 136.6 | −0.3% |
| May 2026 | 135.3 | −1.2% |
| Apr 2026 | 138.2 | +0.5% |
| Mar 2026 | 139.3 | +1.2% |
| Feb 2026 | 138.4 | +1.2% |
| Jan 2026 | 136.3 | −1.1% |
| Dec 2025 | 136.9 | −0.4% |
| Nov 2025 | 137.2 | +0.1% |
| Oct 2025 | 136.7 | −1.2% |
| Sep 2025 | 138 | +0.5% |
| Aug 2025 | 138.9 | +0.1% |
| Jul 2025 | 138.5 | +0.9% |
| Jun 2025 | 137 | −0.7% |
| May 2025 | 136.9 | −1.2% |
| Apr 2025 | 137.5 | +1.7% |
| Mar 2025 | 137.6 | +0.7% |
| Feb 2025 | 136.8 | +0.1% |
| Jan 2025 | 137.8 | +1.9% |
| Dec 2024 | 137.4 | −0.8% |
| Nov 2024 | 137.1 | −0.3% |
| Oct 2024 | 138.3 | +0.4% |
| Sep 2024 | 137.3 | −0.1% |
| Aug 2024 | 138.8 | +1.3% |