The Transportation Statistics Annual Report describes the Nation’s transportation system, the system’s performance, its contributions to the economy, and its effects on people and the environment. This 21st edition of the report is based on information collected or compiled by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), a principle Federal statistical agency at the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Nearly 4.2 million miles of roads, more than 19,000 public and private use airports, about 140,000 miles of freight and passenger railroads, 25,000 miles of navigable waterways, and nearly 2.7 million miles of oil and gas pipelines connect the Nation’s people and businesses across the continent and with the rest of the world.

The estimated value of U.S. transportation assets in 2014 was approximately $8.1 trillion. The public owns 50.5 percent of the total transportation asset value, mostly highways and streets, but also publicly held transit facilities, airports, and numerous seaports, inland ports and terminals, and other facilities related to water transportation. Private companies own 31.5 percent of transportation assets, including railroads, pipelines, trucks, planes, and ships. Personal motor vehicles account for the remaining 18.0 percent.

The average person travels about 13,000 miles per year, and domestic businesses shipped 56 tons of freight annually per person in the United States.

The transportation sector accounted for:

• About $1.422 trillion in purchases and investments in transportation goods and services—or 8.9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2014,
• $134.3 billion in public and private expenditures on transportation construction in 2015,
• 13.1 million jobs in transportation- related industries—or 9.4 percent of the U.S. labor force in 2014,
• $1,184 billion in transportation expenditures by U.S. residents—or 9.6 percent of all personal consumption expenditures in 2015.
• 36,982 lives lost and roughly 2.44 million nonfatal injuries in 2015,
• 70.1 percent of total petroleum consumption in the United States, and
• about 26 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

BTS compiled these and other statistics under Section 52011: Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (Public Law No. 112- 141), which requires information on:

• transportation safety across all modes and intermodally—Chapter 6;
• the state of good repair of United States transportation infrastructure—Chapters 1 and 4;
• the extent, connectivity, and condition of the transportation system, building on the BTS national transportation atlas database—Chapters 1, 2, and 3;
• economic efficiency across the entire transportation sector—Chapters 3, 4, and 5;
• the effects of the transportation system on global and domestic economic competitiveness—Chapters 3, 4, and 5;
• demographic, economic, and other variables influencing travel behavior, including choice of transportation mode and goods movement—Chapters 2 and 3;
• transportation-related variables that influence the domestic economy and global competitiveness—Chapters 3, 4, and 5;
• economic costs and impacts for passenger travel and freight movement—Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5;
• intermodal and multimodal passenger movement—Chapters 1 and 2;
• intermodal and multimodal freight movement—Chapters 1 and 3; and
• consequences of transportation for the human and natural environment—Chapter 7.

See Appendix A in this report for a list of specific tables and figures that provide information on each of these topics, and Appendix B for a glossary of terms used throughout this report.

This report of the BTS Director to the President and the Congress summarizes the Bureau’s findings through 2016.