NAFTA freight in October reaches $100 billion for first time since March

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that in October trucks moved 64 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 nearly 7 percent compared with September, when freight was down more than 3 percent from the previous month. March had 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 October 2016, freight was up 8 percent. This marks the 12th consecutive month of year-to-year increases. Nine of 12 months experienced a loss compared to the previous year in 2016.


October’s rise was the third largest year-to-year increase this year, following behind March (10.9 percent increase) and May (9.4 percent increase). 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 have 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 $64 billion of the $100.56 billion of imports and exports in October. Rail came in second with more than $15 billion.

Freight totaled $100.56 billion, up more than $6 billion from the previous month and an increase of more than $7 billion from October 2016.

Vessel freight accounted for the largest increase at 32.6 percent after an increase of 28.6 percent in September. Trucks accounted for a modest increase at 5.7 percent. Truck freight experienced a similar modest increase of 2.9 percent in September and 3.6 percent in August.

Nearly 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 9 percent compared with October 2016. Of the $50.8 billion of freight moving in and out of Mexico, trucks carried more than 70 percent of the loads.