BTS freight dashboard flags rail, truck, and port metrics operators need to watch now

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics updated its Supply Chain and Freight Indicators dashboard on July 7, 2026, giving logistics and operations teams a near-real-time read across port throughput, rail performance, truck corridor conditions, and freight cost benchmarks. The dashboard is produced by a BTS-led interagency working group that pulls data from the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Commerce, and Labor alongside DOT modal offices, making it one of the broadest federal aggregations of supply chain signal available without a subscription.

For operators who manage inbound or outbound container flows, the port section tracks loaded import and export container volumes at select major U.S. ports, empty export container repositioning, and the number of containerships either anchored offshore or queued and awaiting a berth. The anchored-vessel count is a live Tuesday-afternoon snapshot drawn from U.S. Maritime Administration AIS feeds, counting only inbound vessels not yet moored. The containership capacity series was recently rebased to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Vessel Management System, which counts only vessels entering port for an official cargo purpose, so the absolute numbers are lower than the prior AIS-based series and the two should not be compared directly.

Rail: CPKC data replaces legacy CP and KCS series

A structural change in the rail data is worth flagging for any team that benchmarks Class I railroad performance. As of May 2025, the dashboard began reporting under the merged CPKC identity, reflecting the April 2023 combination of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern. The legacy CP and KCS individual series are frozen and will not receive further updates. Operators comparing current CPKC dwell or speed figures against historical CP or KCS data need to account for that discontinuity.

The rail section covers average train speed and terminal dwell time broken out by railroad and by region, along with rail cars on line. These metrics matter for shippers routing intermodal moves through specific corridors: elevated dwell at a major terminal signals potential holding time that ripples into warehouse receiving schedules. The dashboard also separately tracks total rail carloads, intermodal units, containers on flat cars, and trailers on flat cars, giving procurement teams visibility into mode-level demand trends.

Truck: bottleneck speeds and port-area reliability

The outside-the-gate section monitors average truck speed and Planning Time Index at ten identified interstate bottleneck locations, with additional granular cuts for the road networks within five miles of the Port of Los Angeles-Long Beach complex and the Port of New York-New Jersey. The PTI is the ratio of 95th-percentile travel time to free-flow travel time, so a rising PTI means conditions are becoming less reliable even if average speeds look acceptable. The data originates from the Federal Highway Administration's National Performance Management Research Data Set.

Time-of-day breakdowns for the LA-LB corridor let fleet managers and drayage coordinators identify which gate windows carry the least reliability risk, a practical input for appointment scheduling and detention cost management.

Cost benchmarks: spot rates, diesel, and transpacific container prices

The transportation cost section pulls together several indicators that procurement and trade teams often source separately. Truck spot rates are segmented by equipment type using DAT clearinghouse data, which represents approximately one-tenth of the overall common carrier market, so the figures are directional indicators of spot market pressure rather than contract rate averages. The Producer Price Index series for trucking, covering both generalized and specialized freight, and the PPI series for diesel fuel provide a contract-renewal context alongside the spot data.

For import and export teams managing ocean freight budgets, the dashboard tracks 40-foot container rates on two transpacific lanes: U.S. Midwest and U.S. West Coast to Central China (Shanghai), and Shanghai to Los Angeles. Downbound grain barge rates on the inland waterway system round out the commodity-specific cost picture for agricultural shippers.

Labor and carrier capacity

The labor section draws on Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Statistics and Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey data for the transportation, warehousing, and utilities sector. The dashboard tracks monthly job openings, hires, and separations including quits and layoffs. Quits are treated as a leading indicator of workforce confidence; when quits rise alongside wage pressure, contract carrier capacity tends to tighten in subsequent months. The data covers wage and salary workers only and excludes owner-operators and independent contractors, an important scope caveat for any team assessing total driver supply.

New active carriers added to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's MCMIS system are also tracked, split between for-hire and private operations. This series provides a forward read on capacity entry: a slowdown in new carrier registrations, combined with rising spot rates, historically precedes tighter contract market conditions.

What this means for your team

• Reconcile your rail routing benchmarks: if your team uses historical Canadian Pacific or Kansas City Southern dwell and speed data as performance baselines, those series are now static. Build new CPKC baseline periods from May 2025 forward before the next contract or routing review.
• Use PTI alongside average truck speed near LA-LB and NY-NJ: a stable average speed with a rising PTI signals growing schedule unreliability, which matters more for appointment-based delivery windows than raw transit time.
• Cross-reference DAT spot rates against the PPI trucking series when entering contract negotiations: DAT represents roughly one-tenth of the carrier market, so a widening gap between spot and PPI trends can indicate whether contract rates are lagging or leading market pressure.
• Monitor new active MCMIS carrier registrations as a 60-to-90-day leading indicator of for-hire capacity: a deceleration in new entrants, visible in the dashboard's weekly updates, is an early signal to lock in capacity ahead of tightening.