This page explains exactly how the Transportli Car Shipping Price Index is built, what it can tell you and what it cannot. The index itself is on the Car Shipping Price Index page.
What the index measures
The index measures the price our platform quotes to ship one running sedan between two named cities, once on an open trailer and once on an enclosed trailer. It uses a fixed basket of 20 lanes, which is 10 corridors quoted in both directions: New York–Orlando, Boston–Miami, Chicago–Atlanta, Dallas–Houston, Los Angeles–New York, Los Angeles–Seattle, Chicago–Dallas, Baltimore–Atlanta, Denver–Phoenix and Atlanta–Orlando. The basket mixes short, medium and long hauls and includes the two Northeast-to-Florida corridors, where the snowbird season moves prices.
How the quotes are collected
- Every Monday we enter each lane’s pickup and delivery city into our platform’s pricing tool for one running sedan, first on an open trailer and then on an enclosed trailer, and record both prices and the distance it shows. That is 40 quotes a week.
- The lanes never change. A lane is only replaced if it stops being quoted, and if that happens we will say so here and show both versions for the overlap week.
- Nothing is adjusted. The prices in the data files are exactly what the tool returned, along with its confidence label.
How the numbers are calculated
- Price index = the average, across the 20 lanes, of (this week’s price ÷ the lane’s price in the first week) × 100. The first week, October 19, 2026, is 100.
- Average per mile = the sum of the 20 prices ÷ the sum of the 20 distances.
- Average sedan price = the simple average of the 20 prices.
- Enclosed price index = the same calculation on the enclosed-trailer prices, with the first week at 100.
- Enclosed premium = for each lane, the enclosed price divided by the open price, minus 1. The headline figure is the median of the 20 lanes.
- Southbound vs. northbound = the average of New York–Orlando and Boston–Miami southbound, divided by the average of the same lanes northbound, minus 1.
What the index is not
- It is not a market-wide price. It reflects quotes on one platform for a fixed set of lanes, not every carrier or every route.
- It is not your price. Your quote depends on your exact pickup and delivery points, vehicle, whether it runs, the trailer type and your dates.
- Individual quotes are estimates. Each price comes with a confidence label of roughly 70% to 90%, and the same lane can move a few dollars between runs, for example a Baltimore–Atlanta quote of $700 and $710 on the same day. The index averages 20 lanes to reduce that noise, but small weekly moves are not significant.
- It is a short series. It began on October 19, 2026, so it says nothing about earlier seasons until it has been running for a year.
Citing and downloading the data
You are welcome to cite the index. Please credit it as Transportli Car Shipping Price Index, give the week, and link to transportli.com/auto-transport/price-index/. The full history is a free download as CSV or JSON.
Corrections
If you find an error in the data or this page, tell us through the contact page and we will correct it and note the change here.