Air carrier: Certificated provider of scheduled and nonscheduled services.

Chained dollars: A method to measure real changes in dollar values between years that uses chain-type indexes, rather than constant dollars. The method first calculates the real changes between adjacent years. Annual rates of real changes are then chained (multiplied) together to obtain the rate of real changes between nonadjacent years.

Class I railroad: Railroads earning adjusted annual operating revenues for three consecutive years of $250,000,000 or more, based on 1991 dollars with an adjustment factor applied to subsequent years.

Commuter rail: Urban/suburban passenger train service for short-distance travel between a central city and adjacent suburbs run on tracks of a traditional railroad system. Does not include heavy or light rail transit service.

Demand-response transit: A nonfixed-route, nonfixed-schedule form of transportation that operates in response to calls from passengers or their agents to the transit operator or dispatcher.

Directional route-miles: The sum of the mileage in each direction over which transit vehicles travel while in revenue service.

Directly operated service: Transportation service provided directly by a transit agency, using their employees to supply the necessary labor to operate the revenue vehicles.

Enplanements: Total number of revenue passengers boarding aircraft.

For-hire: Refers to a vehicle operated on behalf of or by a company that provides services to external customers for a fee. It is distinguished from private transportation services, in which a firm transports its own freight and does not offer its transportation services to other shippers.

General aviation: Civil aviation operations other than those air carriers holding a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. Types of aircraft used in general aviation range from corporate, multi–engine jets piloted by a professional crew to amateur-built, single-engine, piston-driven, acrobatic planes.

Gross Domestic Product: The total value of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States. As long as the labor and property are located in the United States, the suppliers may be either U.S. residents or residents of foreign countries.

Heavy-rail transit: High-speed transit rail operated on rights-of-way that exclude all other vehicles and pedestrians.

Hybrid vehicle: Hybrid electric vehicles combine features of internal combustion engines and electric motors. Unlike 100% electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles do not need to be plugged into an external source of electricity to be recharged. Most hybrid vehicles operate on gasoline.

International Roughness Index (IRI): A scale for roughness based on the simulated response of a generic motor vehicle to the roughness in a single wheel path of the road surface.

Lane-miles: One mile of one lane of road.

Large certificated air carrier: Carriers operating aircraft with a maximum passenger capacity of more than 60 seats or a maximum payload of more than 18,000 pounds. These carriers are also grouped by annual operating revenues: majors—more than $1 billion; nationals—between $100 million and $1 billion; large regionals—between $20 million and $99,999,999; and medium regionals—less than $20 million.

Light-rail transit: Urban transit rail operated on a reserved right-of-way that may be crossed by roads used by motor vehicles and pedestrians.

Light duty vehicle: Passenger cars, light trucks, vans, pickup trucks, and sport/utility vehicles regardless of wheelbase.

Nominal dollars: A market value that does not take inflation into account and reflects prices and quantities that were current during the period being measured.

Nonself-propelled vessels: Includes dry cargo, tank barges, and railroad car floats that operate in U.S. ports and waterways.

Oceangoing vessels: Includes U.S. flag, privately-owned merchant fleet of oceangoing, self-propelled, cargo-carrying vessels of 1,000 gross tons or greater.

Particulates: Carbon particles formed by partial oxidation and reduction of hydrocarbon fuel. Also included are trace quantities of metal oxides and nitrides originating from engine wear, component degradation, and inorganic fuel additives.

Passenger-mile: One passenger transported one mile. For example, one vehicle traveling 3 miles carrying 5 passengers generates 15 passenger miles.

Personal communication: Involves contacting the source for data if not publicly available.

Reliever airports: Airports designated by the Federal Aviation Administration to relieve congestion at commercial service airports and to provide improved general aviation access to the overall community.

Self-propelled vessels: Includes dry cargo vessels, tankers, and offshore supply vessels, tugboats, pushboats, and passenger vessels, such as excursion/sightseeing boats, combination passenger and dry cargo vessels, and ferries.

Short ton: A unit of weight equal to 2,000 pounds.

Structurally deficient: Structural deficiencies are characterized by deteriorated conditions of significant bridge elements and reduced load-carrying capacity.

Tg CO2 Eq.: Teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent, a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases based on their global warming potential.

Ton-mile: A unit of measure equal to movement of one ton over one mile.

Transportation Services Index: BTS’ monthly measure indicating the relative change in the volume of services over time performed by the for-hire transportation sector. Change is shown relative to a base year, which is given a value of 100. The TSI covers the activities of for-hire freight carriers, for-hire passenger carriers, and a combination of the two. See www.bts.gov for a detailed explanation.

Unlinked passenger trip: The number of passengers who board public transportation vehicles. Passengers are counted each time they board vehicles no matter how many vehicles they use to travel from their origin to their destination.

Vehicle-mile: One vehicle traveling one mile.