BTS's November freight update separates market activity from a truck's arrival time

BTS published its November Supply Chain Indicators announcement on November 4. The update includes port container measures, rail activity and dwell measures, truck speeds and planning-time indexes at selected bottlenecks and around major ports, plus freight, inventory and fuel-related indicators.

The truck-related entries include average speed and planning-time measures at ten bottleneck locations, and measures around Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey. These are defined locations, not a live view of every route in a carrier's network.

That mix is useful precisely because it does not reduce the supply chain to one number. Container activity, terminal dwell and road travel conditions describe different parts of a shipment's journey. A change in one should not automatically be treated as evidence that every other part improved.

FHWA defines the Planning Time Index as the ratio of the 95th-percentile travel time to free-flow travel time. That percentile describes the slower end of the observed trip distribution; it is different from an average trip. FHWA's documentation also specifies the periods and weighting used for its Urban Congestion Report measures.

For dispatch, the conceptual distinction is straightforward: average speed describes typical movement, while a reliability measure helps explain how much travel times can vary. Neither turns a historical observation into a promise about the next trip.

A hypothetical port pickup illustrates the difference. A dispatcher could see a reasonable average road speed yet still need to investigate a wide spread in travel times. The next questions would concern the relevant corridor, direction and time period, together with the terminal appointment and current road conditions. A national headline alone cannot answer them.

The FHWA definition explains the concept; individual BTS charts still need their own notes and sources checked before comparing values. Different coverage or time windows can make superficially similar measures unsuitable for a direct comparison.

BTS's methodology describes the Transportation Services Index as a monthly measure of for-hire transportation output. Its freight component includes trucking, rail, inland waterways, pipelines and air freight. It excludes private trucking, courier services, the Postal Service and international or coastal steamship movements.

That scope makes it broader than one truck route and narrower than all goods movement. It should not be read as a direct measure of the loads available to a particular dispatcher or the price a shipper will accept.

For an operational briefing, a useful structure is to put market context in one paragraph and the shipment's timing evidence in another. The first can explain the background; the second can identify what is known about the actual movement and what remains uncertain.

A November publication date is not a substitute for the observation date shown with each series. BTS provides a consolidated indicators page and links to the underlying dataset and source notes. Reading those details is part of interpreting the update, rather than an optional step after seeing a chart.

A compact dispatch note can record the measure, geography, observed period and decision it informs. That makes it easier to notice when a broad monthly series is being asked to resolve a current local question. It also leaves room for updated route and terminal information without claiming that the public indicators themselves supply a complete dispatch plan.