Consumers Price Index: March 2015 quarter

Fruit, vegetable, and fuel prices now collected electronically

The way we collect prices for the CPI changed in February. We introduced handheld tablets for field interviewers to price and submit fresh fruit and vegetable and fuel data electronically. Up to now, we've relied on traditional pen and paper methods, coupled with courier mail to receive and send work.

The new approach allows field interviewers to capture and send data back to the office in real time, leading to smarter, faster, and more efficient data collection and processing.

Electronic collection went live in February for fresh fruit and vegetables and for fuel. In April we'll add other food items and non-food items priced monthly, followed in May by other items in the CPI basket collected from retail outlets like department stores and appliance stores. Our phased approach manages the risks to key statistics from rolling out new technology.