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

The seven locations are: (1) "Twin Cities," a stretch along the Upper Mississippi; (2) "Mid-Mississippi," a stretch between eastern Iowa and western Illinois; (3) "Illinois River," along the lower portion of the Illinois River; (4) "St. Louis"; (5) "Cincinnati," along the middle third of the Ohio River; (6) "Lower Ohio," approximately the final third of the Ohio River; and (7) "Cairo-Memphis," from Cairo, IL, to Memphis, TN.

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 In 1976, the United States Department of Justice entered into an agreement with the ICC and made Tariff No. 7 no longer applicable.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.

Line chart showing weekly tonnages of grain barge movements transited through Mississippi River Lock 27, Ohio River Lock 52, and Arkansas River Lock 1. Each line represents a recent year, providing a comparison of barge tonnages to the same time in previous years. Use the filters to narrow down to specific locks or commodities.

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

The agricultural industry relies on the U.S. inland waterways navigation system to ship grains from production States to domestic destinations and export markets. Via the Mississippi River System, barges deliver roughly 90 percent of the grain exported from the Mississippi Gulf port region. USDA collects the following two datasets on barged grain volumes from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Lock Performance Monitoring System (LPMS) and Waterborne Commerce Statistics (WCS) data. USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) also collects and reports barge freight rates every week. This dashboard collates a variety of important barge performance indices that will be updated as new data is available based on WCS and LPMS data. Each visualization provides a link to its underlying processed data. Another hyperlink from the processed data allows users the access to the raw datasets.

This chart shows Mississippi River monthly grain barge movement by commodity. Use filters to select commodity, lock, direction of traffic, date range, or to specify the year and month.

This dataset summarizes the annual internal barge traffic on the U.S. waterways system by using the Waterborne Commerce Statistics Data. Tonnages are provided by commodity, month, and year.

The dataset is updated once a year.

Definition of the "internal" traffic: Vessel movements (origin and destination) which take place solely on inland waterways. An inland waterway is one geographically located within the boundaries of the contiguous 48 states or within the boundaries of the State of Alaska.
The term "internal traffic" is also applied to these vessel movements: those which involve carriage on both inland waterways and the Great Lakes; those occurring between offshore areas and inland waterways (e.g., oil rig supplies and fish); and those taking place within Delaware Bay, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound, and the San Francisco Bay, which are considered internal bodies of water rather than arms of the ocean.

Visit U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center for more information (https://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/About/Technical-Centers/WCSC-Waterborne-Commerce-Statistics-Center-2/)

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

The Mississippi River (north of St. Louis, MO) and its tributaries (e.g., the Arkansas River, Illinois River, Ohio River, etc.) make use of a series of locks and dams to bring traffic up and down the waterways. Grain generally flows south from the relatively production-rich areas of the Midwest to export ports in Louisiana and feed markets in the southeast.

This dataset provides weekly information on the amount (in tons), location, and commodity of barged grain transiting the following three major points: (1) the last lock on the Mississippi, Mississippi Locks 27 (called "Miss Locks 27" in the dataset), which captures downbound traffic from the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers; (2) the last lock on the Ohio River, Olmsted Locks and Dam (called "Ohio Olmstead" in the dataset), which captures any downbound traffic on the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers; and (3) the last lock on the Arkansas River, Arkansas River Lock and Dam 1 (called "Ark Lock 1" in the dataset).

Ohio Olmsted locks replaced Ohio Locks 52 beginning in November 2018.

Commodities include "corn," "soybeans," "wheat," and "other" (oats, barley, sorghum, and rye).

Combined, these three locks give a sense of barge grain traffic (by commodity) on the Mississippi--since grain shipments heading south from the Upper Mississippi River, Illinois River, Ohio River, and Arkansas River are captured. Note, however, that this data does not include all grain barge movements on the Mississippi Rover System, as some grain originates on the Mississippi below the locking portion (south of St. Louis, MO). Grain traffic originating below Lock 27 on the Mississippi is about 10 to 30 percent of total downbound grain shipments, which varies year to year.

A similar dataset, "Upbound and Downbound Loaded and Empty Barge Movements (Count)," contains information on the count of grain barges moving down the locking system (https://agtransport.usda.gov/d/w6ip-grsn) versus this dataset that shows tonnages.

Data is collected weekly from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Lock Performance Monitoring System.