Commercial Carrier Journal reported that the amount of freight carried by the for-hire transportation industry rose 3.9% in December from November, representing the largest monthly rise in 17 years, which brought the level of freight shipments to an all-time high, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Freight Transportation Services Index released Wednesday, Feb. 8. Shipments in December were at the highest level in the 22-year history of the series.

According to the report, BTS reported that the level of freight shipments measured by the Freight TSI, 113.7, surpassed the previous high of 113.3 in January 2005 by 0.4%. After dipping to a recent low in April 2009 (94.3) when freight shipments were at their lowest level since June 1997 (92.3), freight shipments increased in 22 of the last 32 months, rising 20.6% during that period.

Additionally, Commercial Carrier Journal reported that for the full year 2011, freight shipments measured by the index were up 6.4%, the highest full-year growth rate since 2002, and marked the third consecutive year with an increase. Freight shipments are up 3.6% in the five years from December 2006 and up 16.3 percent in the 10 years from December 2001 despite declines in recent years.
The Freight TSI measures the month-to-month output of the for-hire freight transportation industry and consists of data from for-hire trucking, rail, inland waterways, pipelines and air freight. The seasonally adjusted index includes historic data from 1990 to the present. The baseline year is 2000.