The Transportation Services Index (TSI) for freight fell 3.2 percent in August from the July level, turning down for the third consecutive month, according to information from the Department of Transportation's Transportation Statistics Bureau.
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 TSI for freight suffered the biggest monthly decline in the freight index since September 2001.
The Freight TSI fell from 112.0 in August 2005 to 108.1 in August 2006, the first decline from August of the previous year since 2001 and the largest August-to-August decline in the period covered by the index. For the first eight months of 2006, the Freight TSI fell 2.6 percent, the first decline in the December-to-August period since 2003 but the biggest decline in the period since 2000.
The index includes historic data from 1990 to the present. The TSI is still under development and is considered experimental. The index measures changes from the monthly average of the base year of 2000.