Logistics Index Methodology

What it measures

The Logistics Index is a diffusion index: 50 marks no change on the prior month. A reading above 50 signals expansion, below 50 contraction, and the distance from 50 measures the strength of the move. As a diffusion measure it turns ahead of hard trade and output statistics, which arrive with a one-to-two-month lag — giving an early, comparable read on the momentum of goods movement.

Coverage

• 4 regions — Asia-Pacific, Europe, America and Africa — plus a World reading.
• 42 economies, individually researched each month.
• US$107.01T GDP base (2025), used to weight regional and world aggregates.
• Monthly cadence — one edition per economy, per month.

How a reading is produced

Each country reading is researched and cross-verified across multiple independent sources before publication. The headline is a weighted average of the sub-indexes below: the composite equals 50 plus the sum of the weighted sub-index contributions, so the decomposition reconciles exactly. Two sub-indexes (Logistics Cost and Inventory) are tracked as 0.00-weight diagnostics — reported for context but excluded from the composite.

Sub-index weights

Aggregation

Regional and World readings are GDP-weighted across the 42 tracked economies, on a US$107.01T (2025) base. Larger economies carry proportionally more weight, so an aggregate reflects the economic scale of the activity it measures, not a simple country average.

Cadence, forecast & seasonality

Every edition reports the latest completed month together with a forecast for the next month, published while the official data is still weeks away; the forecast is always drawn dashed and its accuracy is scored as each call realises. Readings are not seasonally adjusted — to strip calendar effects such as Lunar New Year or Q4 peak shipping, compare year-on-year or watch the 3-month average rather than a single month-on-month move.

Revisions & versioning

Figures are subject to a documented, scheduled-revision policy as later source data settles. Methodology v2, effective June 2026, expanded coverage to 4 regions and 42 economies (from 2 regions and 40 economies) and rebased the GDP weights to US$107.01T. Each edition is timestamped with the methodology version under which it was computed.

Companion series: the Gateway Access Monitor

Alongside the index, WRI publishes the Gateway Access Monitor — a monthly, openly published assessment of access reliability at the world's maritime chokepoints. It applies WRI's Logistics Access Reliability framework, which distinguishes four states of logistics capacity: what infrastructure was designed for, what present conditions permit, what users can actually book, and whether booked capacity is delivered at a predictable time and cost. Monitor readings are observational, verified against the operating authorities' primary publications, and do not enter the computation of any Logistics Index — the index measures the direction of logistics activity; the monitor explains whether the capacity behind that activity remains commercially accessible.

The Monitor is produced under its own published methodology: the Gateway Access Monitor methodology (v1.1).