In my reserch on this topic this week it seems that the federal highway adminstraion seems to be slanting stats in favor of trucks because they fail to differentiate between private haulers who haul there own freight,Route Salesmen who drive bread and potato chip trucks,Factory trucks that owned by the industry to shuffle unfinised goods from factory to factory and “Intercity Truckload Common Carrior”. If they would just compare markets that railroads are in (That is inter-city common carriers of distances of 100 miles or more carring bulk goods) they will find out that railroads carry at least 60% or more of long distance freight in this country. Not the 18% that the Federal Highway Adminatration is claiming. Same with Amtrak, Amtrak moves 20,000,000 people a year.The Feds say that this is only 3% of total trips but they fail to mention that among Common for hire carriers(not priavte Auto) in Amtraks Market(Greyhound,Budget Airlines that make multiple stops such as Southwest that Amtrak ranks at least # 5 in Passengers carried and # 3 in Passenger Miles…
Railroads vs. Trucks in terms of who carries more freight.....Federal HighwayA may be slanting stats
You seem to be stating that the only accurate stats would show common carriers only and exclude private or charter carriers. Unfortunately the real world doesn’t work that way. Even if a tankload of phosphoric acid is being moved by a chemical company’s own truck instead of a tank car, it still counts as truck haulage, as it should since the product is still being moved by somebody.
Are intermodal trailers counted twice, once as a truck and once as a rail movements, or three times, twice as a truck and once as a rail movement?