The Freight Transportation Services Index rose 0.2 percent in March to 111.6, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported. The March level was 0.8 percent lower than the March 2005 level, the first March-to-March decline since 2002. For the first three months of 2006, the TSI for freight fell 0.2 percent, the first decline in the first quarter since 2003.
TSI is a single seasonally adjusted index of the month-to-month changes in the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, including railroad, air, truck, inland waterways, pipeline and local transit. The index, which includes historic data from 1990 to the present, remains under development and is considered experimental. The baseline year is 2000.
