Weekly barge rates in future months for downbound freight originating from seven locations along the Mississippi River System. This dataset shows rates for transactions three months in the future.

The U.S. Inland Waterway System utilizes a percent-of-tariff system to establish barge freight rates. The tariffs were originally from the Bulk Grain and Grain Products Freight Tariff No. 7, which were issued by the Waterways Freight Bureau (WFB) of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). In 1976, the United States Department of Justice entered into an agreement with the ICC and made Tariff No. 7 no longer applicable. Today, the WFB no longer exists, and the ICC has become the Surface Transportation Board, which does not have jurisdiction over barge rates on the inland waterways. However, the barge industry continues to use the tariffs as benchmarks for rate units.

Each city on the river has its own benchmark, with the northern most cities having the highest benchmarks. They are as follows: Twin Cities = 619; Mid-Mississippi = 532; St. Louis = 399; Illinois = 464; Cincinnati = 469; Lower Ohio = 446; and Cairo-Memphis = 314.

To calculate the rate in dollars per ton, multiply the percent of tariff rate by the 1976 benchmark and divide by 100: (Rate * 1976 tariff benchmark rate per ton)/100. As an example, a 271 percent tariff for a St. Louis grain barge would equal 271 percent of the St. Louis benchmark rate of $3.99, or $10.81 per ton.

This data contains information of annual commodity grain movement (in volume) by origins, destination States, and commodity types.

Includes weekly data on the number of grain barges unloaded for export at grain elevators located in the New Orleans region, between Baton Rouge and Myrtle Grove.

This chart shows Arkansas River monthly fertilizer movements by locks. Lock 13 data is available from February 2021. Use filters to change date range, direction of traffic, lock, or to specify the year and month.

This line chart shows weekly grain barge tonnages by lock over the past few years. Use the filters to narrow down to specific grains, locks, or date ranges.

This line chart shows downbound grain barge rates by location. Use the filters to change the date range or locations.

This line chart shows weekly downbound grain barge rates, averaged by week, and broken out by years, providing a comparison of rates to the same time in previous years. Use the filters to narrow down to specific locations or change the date range.

This file contains monthly grain and fertilizer barge movements for selected locks on Mississippi River, Ohio River, Illinois River, Arkansas River, and Columbia River.

This file contains records of all the empty barges for the selected Rivers and locks. The data is from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Lock Performance Monitoring System.

This dataset contains numbers of monthly empty barge movements including the following five rivers: Mississippi River (3 locks), Illinois River (2 locks), Ohio River (2 locks), Arkansas River (2 locks), and Columbia River (2 locks). Both upbound and downbound traffics are included.

USDA/AMS also published a weekly empty barge dataset for Mississippi River, Illinois River, and Ohio River titled "Upbound and Downbound Loaded and Empty Barge Movements (Count)", which contains data for one lock in each river. Users can find the dataset using this link: https://internal.agtransport.usda.gov/Barge/Upbound-and-Downbound-Loaded-and-Empty-Barge-Movem/w6ip-grsn

This chart shows the lastest weekly total tonnages of grain barge movements. Use the filters to select lock, commdoity, and date.