BTS publishes August North American freight numbers

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), recently published the North American freight numbers for August.

For August, the value of freight from US-NAFTA amounted to $92.4 billion. All of the various modes of transportation showed that they had carried less value of freight when compared to August 2014.

According to year-over-year figures, the value of freight from US-NAFTA traveling with all modes of transportation showed a decline of 8.1 percent. These significant decreases in pipeline and vessel commodities are attributed to the declining unit price of mineral fuel.

When comparing August 2014 to 2015, there was a decline in trucks moving commodities by 1.8 percent. Rail decreased an estimated 8.4 percent, while air declined by 10.3 percent. Pipeline freight fell by 33.6 percent. Vessel freight values also fell another 33.5 percent.

According to the report, trucks transported 63.6 percent of freight from US-NAFTA. Trucks were the most popular method for transporting goods to and from US-NAFTA partners, accounting for $29.7 billion out of the $49.8 billion of all imports. This figure sums up to 59.6 percent of imports. Trucks also comprised $29.1 billion out of the $42.1 billion, or 68.3 percent, of exports.

Experts attribute the declines to the fall in prices for mineral fueling, not a decrease volume of freight that needs to be transported.