Technical documentation 5-1: Domestic Freight Activity by Mode (Millions of metric tons)

Air: Air data reflect Level I to III Canadian air carriers that transported 1,000 or more tonnes of revenue goods, or 5,000 or more revenue passengers, between airports located within Canada. In Table 5-1, air data are expressed in units of millions of tonnes. In Table 5-2, data are in billions of tonne-kilometers.

Pipeline: Pipeline data include the population of Canadian industries classified as Natural Gas Pipeline Transport, Natural Gas Distribution, Pipeline Transportation of Crude Oil and Other Pipeline Transportation according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The data include the amounts of oil and natural gas transported via domestic pipelines. Conversion factors of 0.73 and 0.844 are used to convert cubic metres of natural gas and oil, respectively, to equivalent tonnages.

Rail: Rail data are based on traffic originating and terminating in Canada, handled by Class I railways. Class I includes Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific (CPR) Rail traffic as well as traffic received from Class II carriers. Thus, Table 5-1 is the total annual tonnes handled by Class I railways and Table 5-2 is the corresponding total annual tonne-kilometres (including any Class II activity, if applicable).

Road: Road data are based on the Quarterly For-Hire Trucking (Commodity Origin/Destination) Survey. This survey measures outputs of the Canadian for-hire trucking industry by providing estimates of intercity commodity movements. Output variables include tonnes transported, commodities carried, revenues generated and origins and destinations of shipments. The target population consists of shipments transported by Canadian domiciled for-hire motor carriers with annual transportation revenues derived from intercity trucking of $1 million or more. Courier and messenger services are not covered by this survey. Prior to 2004, data excludes local (less than 25 kilometers) deliveries, and deliveries made by private trucks and small for-hire carriers. Since 2004, data include the local trucking sector and all shipments made by the companies on the survey frame are in-scope.

Water transport: All water data are based on domestic shipping information that is collected by means of the S.1 Domestic Shipping Report and the S.4 Towboat and Ferry Operators Shipping Report (the S.4 report is used on the West Coast only). A record of activity is filed with Statistics Canada for each vessel entering or leaving a Canadian port in domestic shipping, with the exception of cargo vessels under 15 net registered tons, tugs or other vessels under 15 gross registered tons, Canadian naval or fishing vessels, research vessels, ballast movements for towboats and ferry operators on the West Coast.

Table 5-1: Domestic Freight Activity by Mode (Millions of metric tons), Canada

Air: Data for Tables 5-1 and 5-2 refer to shipments transported by national air carriers in regular and charter services of load (shipments carried by air taxis are not included). In Table 5.2, for the calculation of the ton-kilometers in domestic service, an average distance of 862 kilometers was assumed. This data was calculated based on the different routes and traffic intensities.

Water transport: Data include shipments made through the ports of the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. In Table 5-2 an average distance of 630 kilometers for coastal sailing was assumed taking into consideration the average of entrances and departures. Although this number is a 1988 estimate made by the former Dirección General de Obras Marítimas (Office of Maritime Works), the coastal sailing structure in Mexico has not changed much since then, so the figure remains a reasonable estimate.

Rail: Exports and imports are excluded from the rail data. Data represent the activity of all railroad systems. For Table 5-2 data were based on the average distances for the total system freight activity. For each year, the data were calculated using the following formula: Ton-km transported in domestic traffic = (total ton-km transported/total ton transported) x ton transported in domestic traffic.

Road: Data are based on estimates of the number of freight vehicles registered to travel on the federal highway network in the Sistema Integral de Información del Autotransporte Federal –SIIAF- (Integral Information System of Federal Motor Carriers) of the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes, plus surveys that provide data on the actual average payload per vechicle per trip in tons and the number of trips per vehicle per week. Data for metric tons are calculated using the following formula:

Transported tons per year = Number of vehicles x average load per trip x average trips per vehicle per week x 52

These survey data are included in the document Estadística Básica del Autotransporte Federal (Basic Statistics of Federal Motor Carriers) prepared by Dirección General de Autotransporte Federal (Federal Motor Carrier General Directorate) of the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes.

For table 5-2, the estimate of metric tons is multiplied by the average distance that freight vehicles travel. The average distance is derived from a survey conducted by the Dirección General de Autotransporte Federal of the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes, and takes into consideration origin/destination information.

Table 5-1: Domestic Freight Activity by Mode (Millions of metric tons), Mexico

Air: Air data are measured in enplaned revenue-tons and revenue ton-kilometers. These data include cargo, mail and express shipments. They include cargo being carried by the large certified domestic air carriers and some cargo airlines. Air tonnage and ton-kilometers data represent the scheduled and nonscheduled activity of all large certified carriers. The large certificated air carriers operate aircraft with seating capacity of more than sixty seats or a maximum payload capacity of more than 8,165 kilograms (18,000 pounds.) (See technical notes under Table 4-1 for a more complete definition of the large certificated air carriers.) Data for commuter and foreign air carriers are not included. Data exclude military cargo moved by civilian carriers.

Water transport (coastal shipping, Great Lakes, and inland waterways): All water data are based on domestic waterborne traffic movements that are reported to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) by all vessel operators on record. Beginning in 1996, data on fishing are excluded for internal waterways traffic. Great Lakes data include waterborne traffic between the United States ports on the Great Lakes system. The Great Lakes system is treated as a separate waterway system rather than as a part of the inland waterway system. Coastal shipping data include domestic traffic over the ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico (e.g., New Orleans to Baltimore, New York to Puerto Rico, San Francisco to Hawaii, or Alaska to Hawaii). Traffic between Great Lakes ports and seacoast ports, when having a carriage over the ocean, also is included in Coastal Shipping data. Inland waterways data represent the sum of the USACE categories of internal and intra-port waterways. For water transport categories (domestic): In Waterborne Commerce of the U.S., Part 5, Coastal waterways includes domestic coastwise; Great Lakes includes domestic lake-wise; Inland waterways includes internal and intra-port.

Pipeline: Oil pipeline and natural gas pipeline data are obtained from Eno Transportation Foundation, Transportation in America.

Rail: Rail data include tons of freight for Class I railroads. Class I railroads make up the majority of U.S. rail freight activity, and they are required to report financial and operating information to the Surface Transportation Board (STB). In 2008, Class I railroads had approximate annual gross operating revenues in excess of $401.4 million. Rail data reflect shipments that originated in the United States. The final destination of these shipments may or may not have been within the continental United States. The source of tonnage data are the freight commodity statistics reports that Class I carriers are required by law to annually report to the Surface Transportation Board.

Road: 1990-2003 data are obtained from Eno Transportation Foundation, Transportation in America. 2004 on data are from the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS). The CFS covers data on shipments originating from select types of business establishments (mining (except oil and gas extraction), manufacturing, wholesale, electronic shopping and mail order, fuel dealers, publishing industries, and auxiliary establishments) located in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Shipments traversing the U.S. from a foreign location to another foreign location (e.g., from Canada to Mexico) are not included, nor are shipments from a foreign location to a U.S. location. However, imported products are included in the CFS at the point that they leave the importer's initial domestic location for shipment to another location. Shipments that are shipped through a foreign territory with both the origin and destination in the U.S. are included in the CFS data. The mileages calculated for these shipments exclude the international segments (e.g., shipments from New York to Michigan through Canada do not include any mileages for Canada). Establishments classified in forestry, fishing, utilities, construction, transportation, and all other retail and services industries were not included in the CFS.

Table 5-1: Domestic Freight Activity by Mode (Millions of metric tons), Unites States