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.

The six-city rate quote monthly average continued its strong performance, now up over the previous year for eight of the last nine months. The July average was up $12.89 over July 2012. While not as strong as June’s $15.16 increase, any rental car manager in the country would be happy with a year-over-year increase of almost $13 per day.

For example, Boston’s average quote of $79.53 is the highest we have seen in the last two years and the second highest since we started the surveys. (Boston had an average quote of $80.80 in July 2011.)