Transportation capacity continued to dwindle in August, but at the slowest rate recorded in six months. Transportation pricing, however, continued to surge, according to a monthly sentiment survey of supply chain professionals.

The Logistics Managers’ Index signaled further tightening in transportation capacity last month, returning a reading of 40. That was 11.6 percentage points slower than July’s contraction rate, which was the second-fastest recorded in the 10-year history of the dataset. (September 2020 marked the index’s fastest rate of contraction at 23.8.)

The LMI is a diffusion index in which a reading above 50 indicates expansion, while one below 50 signals contraction.

Transportation prices (90) increased 3.1 points in the month, with the index logging extreme growth rates of 90 or higher in four of the past five months.

Transportation utilization (70.6) was up 5.6 points, marking only the second time in five years the index has registered “robust” growth (above 70).

“Essentially, this month’s report paints a picture of logistics costs that seem to be rapidly increasing no matter what the underlying situation is,” the Tuesday report said.

Read more: FreightWaves