Box 1-4 Seasonal Adjustment

Seasonal adjustment is the process of estimating and removing seasonal movement. Seasonal adjustment decomposes a time series into a seasonal part and an irregular part. The goal is to remove changes in the data happening at the same time and with the same magnitude and direction every year...

Figure 1-6 Monthly Freight TSI and Inventory to Retail Sales Ratio, 2000 to 2016

Table Version

Figure 1-5 Monthly Industrial Production, Manufacturers’ Shipments, and Freight TSI, 2000 to 2016

Table Version

Box 1-3 Industrial Production and Manufacturers’ Shipments

The Industrial Production Index is published monthly by the Federal Reserve Board and measures real output in the U.S. industrial sector, which includes manufacturing, mining, and electric and gas utilities.

Data on manufacturers’ shipments come from the Census Bureau’s...

Figure 1-4 Quarterly GDP, Foreign Trade, and Freight TSI, 2000 to 2015

Table Version

Figure 1-3 Freight TSI and the Economic Growth Cycle, 1979 to 2015

Text Version

Figure 1-2 Transportation Services Index, 2000 to 2015

Table Version

Box 1-2 Chained Indexing

Many economic measures use a fixed base year to allow comparisons over time. However, the measures are highly sensitive to the base year chosen, and choosing a new base year can change the measure's history dramatically. In the past, when government economists changed the base year for...

Figure 1-1 Transportation Services Index Components

Box 1-1 Transportation Services Index

The Transportation Services Index (TSI), produced by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), measures the movement of freight and passengers. The Bureau produces three indexes—a freight index, a passenger index, and a total or combined index....