Transportation revenue includes taxes, charges, and fees collected by governments from transportation and non-transportation activities and allocated to transportation programs. Income from investing transportation funds and receipts from fines and penalties are also treated as transportation revenue. For reporting, transportation revenue is classified and grouped into two categories: own-source revenue and supporting revenue, minus transportation revenue directed to other uses.

Own-source revenue refers to taxes and charges levied on transportation-related activities and used specifically for transportation. Most of these revenue sources are user fees charged to users of the transportation system. Examples include:

• Excise taxes such as motor fuel taxes and aviation taxes
• Property taxes such as motor vehicle taxes
• Income taxes such as corporate taxes paid by transportation companies
• Charges such as tolls and motor vehicle license fees
• Fines and penalties such as speeding and parking violation tickets
• Investment income such as interest income from Highway Trust Fund balance
• Income from concession agreements where a publicly owned transportation infrastructure is operated on a concession basis by a private company

Supporting revenue includes funds that are collected from non-transportation-related activities but dedicated to support transportation programs. Examples include receipts received by state and local governments from sales or property taxes to finance transportation projects.

Revenue directed to other uses includes funds that are raised from transportation-related activities but used to finance programs other than transportation. An example is receipts generated from motor fuel taxes that are directed to the general fund for other uses.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2016.