Eurostat SPPI, six member states (DE, IT, ES, NL, PL, FR), common windows to 2024-Q1. Interactive prototype of the Power BI monitor.
Country: drives the Rates and Volatility tabs
RatesVolatilitySeasonalityContext and limits
Verdict. Air runs 1.63x road's volatility (intra-year band 6.7% vs 2.8%). Index-link or shorten air contracts, fix road long, and tender air into the Q4-Q1 trough. The timing rule paid in 75% of 85 backtested market-years.
Kruskal-Wallis quarter effect: air p about 1e-10, road p about 5e-4. Both modes seasonal, peak Q2. Lock air ahead of the Q2 high season: the trough-season lock beat the peak-season lock in 75% of 85 market-years (Germany 8 of 9), confirmed out of sample in 2024-2025.
Limits. The air index (NACE H51) includes passenger air, so it is a broad proxy. Road has no EU aggregate, so the comparison is at member-state level. French air is INSEE CPF 51.21 (freight only), a purer but spikier series than the Eurostat H51 used for the other five. Figures are index tendencies, not one firm's realised costs.
Validation. The tender-timing rule is backtested: locking air at trough-season levels beat peak-season locks in 75% of 85 market-years (mean edge 1.83%). The air-vs-road volatility gap survives removing the pandemic years (CV ratio 1.35 ex-COVID, 1.41 pre-COVID, 1.63 full window). Out of sample, the Q2 climb repeated in 10 of 12 market-years in 2024-2025.
Air color blue, road color red throughout. Built from fact_freight_6.csv. Power BI is the graded build; this prototype demonstrates the same design.