We develop a monthly output index of the U.S. Transportation sector over 1980:1-2002:4 covering air, rail, water, truck, transit and pipeline activities. Separate indexes for freight and passenger are also constructed. Our total transportation output index matches very well with the annual...

Transportation plays a central role in facilitating economic activities across sectors and between regions, and is thus essential to business cycle research. Using four coincident indicators representing different aspects of the transportation sector that include an index of transportation...

With the increasing importance of the service-providing sectors, information from these sectors has become essential to the understanding of contemporary business cycles. This paper explores the usefulness of the transportation services output index (TSI) as an additional coincident indicator in...