With the help of Jim Tennant of The Tennant Group and Michael Meyer of Rate-Highway Inc., we are conducting rate surveys on a weekly basis and providing analysis and comments where appropriate. We publish this monthly recap in our electronic edition and more comprehensive looks in the print editions.

February rates continued the downward trend we have seen since August 2013. Year-over-year ICAR rate quotes have been down 17 of the last 19 months, but February was only down $1.42 (2.8%) from February 2015.

The Northwest and Midwest regions were up $7.51 and $3.03, respectively. The Southwest and Southeast regions were essentially flat, while the Northeast, undoubtedly showing effects of the weather, was down $9.82.

Brand pricing in February was interesting. The three major airport brands were all up year-over-year, with the Hertz brand up most — at $5.49 over last February.

We don’t normally see such a large difference in year-over-year comparisons between the three major brands and the five smaller brands. We will be interested to see how this affects the two public companies’ reported revenue per transaction day (RPD).