Purpose and Status of the Multimodal Commodity and Passenger Flow Surveys (Reprint).

摘要

Because transportation exists to move people and goods, information on the quantity and characteristics of commodity and passenger movements between and within regions is essential to the development of informed transportation decisions. Information on commodity and passenger flows also supports analyses of regional economic activity and social interaction. While extensive data are collected on terminal-to-terminal flows of people and goods using for-hire carriers and single modes, very little current data exist on: the true origins and destinations of passenger movements and commodity flows that involve more than one mode; the dependence of rail, water, pipeline, and air modes on highways and the interdependence of rail, water, and pipeline modes to reach true origins and destinations from intervening terminals; the total quantity and geography of flows by either private passenger vehicles or shipper-owned trucks; the geography of flows by for-hire trucks; the costs of transportation by market served; the domestic origins and destinations of international trade; the provision of ground transportation services for domestic trade by nationality of carrier; and the characteristics of travellers and shippers and the purposes of their movements that explain and predict passenger and commodity flows.