December 2025 Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI) fell 0.6% from November 2025

The Freight Transportation Services Index (TSI) fell 0.6% in December from November, falling for the first month after one month of growth, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). From December 2024 to December 2025 the index rose 0.4%. The freight TSI measures the amount of freight carried by the for-hire transportation industry.

The Passenger TSI fell 0.1% in December from November, falling for the second consecutive month. From December 2024 to December 2025 the index fell 0.2%. The passenger TSI measures passenger transportation volumes on local transit, intercity rail, and air transportation. The Combined Freight and Passenger Index fell by 0.4% in December from November and rose by 0.2% from December 2024 to December 2025.

Analysis: The Freight TSI decreased in December due to decreases in air freight, rail carloads, and pipeline while rail intermodal, trucking, and water volumes increased.

The passenger index decreased in December due to decreases in transit while air passenger, and rail passenger increased volumes. The Passenger TSI was 8.0% below the all-time high in January 2020.

BTS estimates air freight and air passenger one month ahead of reported data (i.e., the pipeline and air data are available through November, BTS estimates the December air freight and air passenger in the December index). Due to data unavailability, BTS estimated two months of pipeline petroleum and one month of waterborne data and relied upon the Energy Information Administration’s Short Term Energy Outlook for two months of natural gas data in this release.