The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that in June trucks moved more than 63 percent of NAFTA freight – with trains, planes, ships and pipelines picking up the rest. All five modes experienced an increase in freight year to year.
The value of freight hauled across the borders increased by 1.5 percent compared with May when freight was up nearly 8 percent from the previous month. March experienced the largest month-to-month increase (16 percent) since March 2011, when NAFTA freight was up more than 22 percent compared to February 2011.
Compared to June 2016, freight was up nearly 8 percent. This marks the eighth consecutive month of year-to-year increases. Nine of 12 months experienced a loss compared to the previous year in 2016.
June’s rise was the third largest year-to-year increase this year, trailing May and March. In March, the index reached more than $100 billion for the first time since October 2014.
August, November and December were the only months to experience a year-to-year increase in 2016 at 0.7 percent, 3.3 percent and 0.4 percent respectively. August was the first year-to-year increase since December 2014, when freight increased by more than 5 percent.
Trucks carried more than $63 billion of the $99.8 billion of imports and exports in June. Rail came in second with more than $15 billion.
Freight totaled $99.764 billion, up more than $1.5 billion from the previous month and an increase of more than $7 billion from June 2016.
Pipeline freight experienced the largest increase at 26.3 percent after an increase of 60.3 percent in May. Trucks experienced a modest increase at 4.4 percent. In May, truck freight experienced the smallest increase at 5 percent.
More than 58 percent of U.S.-Canada freight was moved by trucks, followed by rail at more than 16 percent. U.S.-Mexico freight went up by more than 9 percent compared with June 2016. Of the $48.7 billion of freight moving in and out of Mexico, trucks carried nearly 70 percent of the loads.
