Transportation Prices Rose 7.9% in September as Gasoline Drove Inflation, BTS Reports
The U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported on October 14, in its latest Multimodal Consumer Price Index (CPI) release focused on transportation, that prices for transportation goods and services rose 7.9% from September 2025 to September 2026 — the highest increase among the eight spending categories — and accounted for 35.4% of the 3.7% year-over-year increase in prices for all goods and services. According to BTS, this is its latest estimate of the synthetic index. The report breaks down the transportation component of the overall Consumer Price Index that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the same day, which rose 3.7% from a year earlier.
By component, gasoline prices were the biggest single driver: gasoline rose 34.2% over the year and alone accounted for 29.5% of the increase in overall prices. Building on that, the largest transportation price increases after gasoline were in airline fares, up 5.4%, followed by motor vehicle maintenance and repair, up 1.6%. Over the same period, transportation prices fell for motor vehicle insurance, down 3.7%, for used cars and trucks, down 0.9%, and for other intercity transportation, down 0.1%.
BTS's transportation-focused index is built on the BLS Consumer Price Index and tracks how transportation prices affect Americans' cost of living and overall inflation. Separately, the BLS reported the same day that its Consumer Price Index rose 0.7% in September on a seasonally adjusted basis and was up 3.7% from a year earlier, compared with a 3.3% annual increase in August.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国一处加油站的油泵（资料图）。Tysto／Wikimedia Commons，公共领域
