Box 1 - Domestic Freight Shipments

The Research and Innovative Technology Administration’s Bureau of Transportation
Statistics and the Federal Highway Administration have developed new estimates of the amount of freight shipped in the United States. The new estimates combine data from the Commodity Flow Survey – the most comprehensive nationwide source of freight data – and data from other sources to provide the most complete picture of freight movements in America yet available. The BTS publication, Freight in America, discusses these estimates in detail. The data shown below highlight some of the multimodal findings from Freight in America.

• Freight shipments weighing more than 19 billion tons (an average of 68 tons per capita) and valued at $13 trillion (an average of $45,324 per capita) were transported on the nation’s transportation network in 2002. (Table B-4 in Chapter 2)
• Trucks carried almost 12 billion tons of freight valued at $9 trillion in 2002. (Table B-4)
• The air mode (including truck and air) carried 6 million tons of freight valued at $563 billion in 2002. (Table B-4)
• Rail carried almost 2 billion tons of freight valued at $392 billion in 2002. (Table B-4)
• Maritime ships carried 1.7 billion tons of cargo valued at $673 billion in 2002. (Table B-4)
• Pipelines carried 3.5 billion tons of crude oil and petroleum products valued at $896 billion in 2002. (Table B-4)