Jul 1, 2008 12:00 PM

Austin TX-based online shipping service provider uShip has launched the Transportation Price Index (TPI), designed to track important data related to transportation costs that will be released monthly. The TPI is expressed in terms of U.S. dollars per ton-mile.

Transactions are condensed to measures of price, weight, and distance. uShip will calculate the weighted-average of these prices across many categories of domestic shipments to determine the overall TPI figure. At the end of each month, uShip will release the latest TPI findings.

This first public release of the TPI shows a slight drop in the overall index for April 2008 to $2.09, which is a decrease of 4.1% from March but an increase of 3.0% from April 2007. Over the same periods, the price of diesel fuel was up 4.5% and 47.7%, respectively.

Less-than-truckload (LTL) freight rose 5.9% in April 2008 after March's sharp drop and is up 10.8% from 2007. Prices in this category have climbed seven of the past eight months.

Visit www.transportationpriceindex.com for full details.