Category Archives: Travel

Rail Travel in the United States

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Passanger-Miles on Rail

Today is another day of travel for millions of Americans as they head home after the Thanksgiving Holiday. So, here’s another market size related to travel, this time, travel by rail. Rail passenger-miles are presented here for intercity rail commuting. These data do not include commuter rail within a metropolitan area. This mode of transportation saw a sharp decline in the 1960s, a decline which had been in progress through the entirety of the 20th century. The chart shows passenger-miles traveled by rail each decade since 1960. This chart shows quite a different pattern than is seen when charting all other passenger travel modes tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A few days ago, we charted air travel passenger-miles, by way of comparison.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2008
Market size: 6,179 million passenger-miles
Source: “Table 1-37: U.S. Passenger Miles (Millions),” Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, available online here.

Highway Miles Driven

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During this holiday week in which many people will be traveling, we present some market sizes for travel, measured in the number of passenger-miles traveled by different modes of transportation. Today, the miles we travel on highways in passenger cars (56.8% of the total), motorcycles (0.4% of total) and what the Department of Transportation calls “other 2-axle, 4-tire vehicles” (42.8% of total).

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2008
Market size: 4,493 billion passenger-miles
Source: “Table 1-37: U.S. Passenger Miles (Millions),” Bureau of Transporation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, available online here.

Miles Traveled by Air

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Air Miles Traveled
During this holiday week in which many people will be traveling, we present some market sizes for travel, measured in the number of passenger-miles traveled by different modes of transportation. Today we look at air travel. Air carrier passenger-miles are computed by summing the products of the aircraft-miles flown on each inter airport segment multiplied by the number of passengers carried on that segment. Air travel has seen steady growth over the years as can be seen in the chart, produced with data in the source listed below.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2008
Market size: 583,506 million passenger-miles
Source: “Table 1-37: U.S. Passenger Miles (Millions),” Bureau of Transporation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics, available online here.