Modest traffic growth trends continued during the first six months of 2014 across U.S. transportation sectors, with generally improving second quarter growth seen at airports, ports and toll roads, according to a new Fitch Ratings report.
'While volumes are expected to strengthen over the next six months, performance will remain mostly tied to domestic and global economic recoveries,' said Seth Lehman, Senior Director. 'Issuers' pricing power will likely remain generally sufficient to ensure at least inflationary rate increases over the next year,' said Saavan Gatfield, Senior Director. 'Rating Outlooks across airports, ports and toll roads should remain stable due to an expectation of steady, but slow growth."
U.S. airport passenger enplanements grew at a modest 1.8% for the first six months of 2014. Traffic levels are expected to pick up at a slightly higher pace for the remainder of 2014 based on general economic improvement and rising seating capacity.
U.S. ports experienced a healthy year-over-year increase of 4.1% in throughput. Capital improvements continue to focus on big ship readiness, a shift that could present challenges including congestion and scheduling difficulties, and the potential for dropped calls and loss of throughput at secondary and tertiary ports of call.
U.S. toll roads year-over-year traffic growth rate improved steadily to around 5%, reverting to the trend set in 2013 before bad winter weather in January and February 2014 led to traffic declines. These harsh winter conditions primarily affected large networks and resulted in traffic declines, while small networks maintained growth rates over 2.0%, reflecting the relatively high concentration of large network facilities in the hard-hit Northeast and Midwest regions.
For more information, the special report: 'U.S. Transportation Trends Fall 2014', is available on the Fitch Ratings web site at www.fitchratings.com.