The Department of Transportation’s freight transportation services index for February fell 2% from a year earlier but rose from January, DOT said.
The February TSI fell to 96.9%, 0.3% higher than January's figure, which had fallen 1.3% from a year earlier, DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics said in its monthly report Wednesday.
The reading was the lowest for the month of February since 1997, when it was 91.3, and the year-to-year February downturn was an improvement over the 2008 to 2009 drop of 11.2%.
The index increased 3.6% over the last nine months, beginning in June. The freight index is down 13.3% in five years from February 2005 and 6.8% in 10 years from February 2000, DOT said.
The TSI is a seasonally adjusted monthly index measuring the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, including railroad, air, truck, inland waterways, pipeline and local transit.