Information

Robert C. Hampshire, PhD | Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

Patricia Hu | Director

Rolf Schmitt | Deputy Director

Ramond Robinson | Director, Office of Transportation Analysis

Sean Jahanmir | Project Manager

Alpha Wingfield | Visual Information Specialist

Daniel Palumbo

Hoa Thai

Air carrier: Certificated provider of scheduled and nonscheduled services.

Alternative fueled vehicle: A vehicle designed to operate on an alternative fuel (e.g., compressed natural gas, propane, electricity). The vehicle can be either a dedicated vehicle designed to operate exclusively on alternative fuel or a non-dedicated vehicle designed to operate on alternative fuel and/or traditional fuel.

Chained dollars:  A method of adjusting to real dollar amounts to account for both changes in price-levels and the composition of output over time. This is completed by using a chain-weighted type index, or average weights in successive time periods, to get a comparable time series of data.

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.

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 electric 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 pavement 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.

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

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.

Nominal dollars: A market value that does not take inflation into account and reflects prices and quantities that is 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.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: Plug-in hybrids use the electric battery as the primary energy source by relying on battery power for propulsion for a limited range (15-40 miles) before switching to internal combustion propulsion (thus reducing gasoline consumption).

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.

Seasonally adjusted: Measures the real differences in data trends by adjusting for seasonal factors such as the change in the number of days, weekends, holidays, or other seasonal activity in a month such as vacation travel.

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.

Real Dollars:  A method of adjusting nominal dollars to account for price level changes over time.  It reflects purchasing power in a given period.

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.

Transportation Services Index Combined: The combined Transportation Services Index (TSI) includes available data on freight traffic, as well as passenger travel, that have been weighted to yield a monthly measure of transportation services output. 

Transportation Services Index Freight: The freight TSI measures the output of the for-hire freight transportation industry and consists of data from for-hire trucking, rail, inland waterways, pipelines and air freight.

Transportation Services Index Passenger: The passenger TSI includes local transit, intercity passenger rail, and passenger air transportation, that have been weighted to yield a monthly measure of transportation services output. 

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.

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