Freight flows between US and NAFTA partners turn sluggish during February

WASHINGTON (Scrap Monster): According to the recent data published by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) under the US Department of Transportation, the surface trade between the US and its NAFTA partners slumped during the month of February.

Although the dip is marginally on account of the reduced number of working days during February when compared to the previous month, the freight movement by various modes of transport witnessed clear slowdown.

The total freight movement between US and its NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico was valued at $88.4 billion. The primary mode of transportation remains to be trucks which accounted for nearly 59.1% of the total freight movement. Trucks were followed by rail(15.3%), vessels(9.7%),pipelines(7.7%) and air(3.6%).Surface transport modes consisting of trucks, rails and pipelines constituted almost 82.1% of the total freight flows.

The total freight movement between US and Canada was valued at $48.9 billion. The primary mode of transportation remains to be trucks which accounted for nearly 54.4% of the total freight movement. Trucks were followed by rail (17%), pipelines (13.3%), vessels (5.3%) and air (4.4%).Surface transport modes consisting of trucks, rails and pipelines constituted almost 84.7% of the total freight flows.

The total freight movement between US and Mexico was valued at $39.6 billion. The primary mode of transportation remains to be trucks which accounted for nearly 64.8% of the total freight movement. Trucks were followed by vessels (15.2%), rail (13.2%), air (2.8%) and pipelines (0.8%).Surface transport modes consisting of trucks, rails and pipelines constituted almost 78.8% of the total freight flows.