Transportation Modes

Transportation statistics, published by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, tend to lag reality by several years—echoing, perhaps, the broad public interest in this fundamental economic activity. The public’s eyeballs are on cell phones and pads, not on the big roaring trucks—and the near-invisible barges and rails. Today I present some data for 1993 and 2007—and 2007 seems so yesterday, doesn’t it. But the trends are important. And with minds now focused on the ephemeral (the Dow, the Debt Limit), it might be a nice moment to remember that some 12.5 billion tons of goods are moved in this country every year—by trucks, rails, barges, air, and pipeline—and that this tonnage is moved a staggering 3.3 trillion ton-miles. A ton-miles is one ton moved one mile, and the huge figure therefore suggests that on average every ton of freight moves nearly 267 miles.

This graphic shows the shares, in percent, of total tonnage moved in 1993 and in 2007, by modes of transport. The dominant transportation here, based on weight alone, is intercity trucking. It commanded a 70 percent share of all tonnage. Note, please, that every other mode, with the exceptions of pipelines and multi-mode transport, lost share to trucking. The difference between Trucking and the nearest other mode, Rail, being a huge difference of 55.2 percent tells us that, for all practical purposes we transport everything by truck. But in the transportation sector a more meaningful measure is the ton-mile, fusing both weight carried and distance.

Most freight classified as “multi-mode” falls under parcel deliveries by freight services or the Postal Services. Another instance would be rails carrying already-loaded trucks. “Unknown mode” means that the U.S. Department of Transportation had real data on hand but not enough information to classify the transporation system used by mode of carrier.

What we note in the second graphic is that trucking and rail are close to equal in their share of ton-miles. Indeed, rails just beat trucking by a very slender 0.1 percent. Data for pipelines, while BTS does have them, are not published because of high sampling variablity. The data shown account for 98 percent of total ton-miles in 1993 and 98.6 percent in 2007; the missing points are probably due to pipelines. The gain experienced by trucking that we see above, between 1993 and 2007, is greater than the gain experienced by rail. And most troubling is the more than halving of water-transportation’s share. Why does that matter? Well, in terms of energy consumption and environmental protection, the best mode of transportation is by barge, then by rail, and finally by truck. Therefore any gains by trucking represent a negative from a perspective of long-range sustainability. To be sure, commodities like grains, sand, rock, and liquids travel by water—and the loss of water-transportation’s share indicates and change in total consumption of goods. We move more manufactured and packaged than commodity goods. And the closer to sale the freight is (meaning ready to sell to consumers in a store) the more speed and time matter. And barges are slow.

In about four years or so—the Department of Transportation is as slow as the barges—I might be able to bring you numbers for 2011—but by that time 2011 will seem so yesterday.

The data source here is the BTS (link). Look for Table 1-52.

Two-In Front Trike

Four bucks a gallon gas does concentrate the mind—the more so when the trend line points straight up. Brigitte and I have reached the age when we remember being sixty with nostalgia. The conversation yesterday thus turned to trikes. Brigitte has long contemplated an adult version of the tricycle as something she might like to try, but her preference is for the kind with two wheels up in the front. Wheeled cycles suggests the other kind, cycles of time. When she had reached this stage in her life, my mother acquired a trike for herself, but she didn’t like it much. Such vehicles have a counter-intuitive kind of feel; you tend to lean the wrong way as you turn and suddenly stop! alarmed! because it seems like something’s wrong. I have memories of that same phenomenon myself from times when, working for Polaris, we were testing three-wheelers, the motorized kind; we later went for a four-wheeler instead. Two wheels in the front, even if you have only three all told, produce a different feel. The question then arose, as we were musing. Is there product out there for those who want the future now?

A quick and entirely unscientific survey produced three contenders: Worksman, Zigo, and Feetz. Not household names? Perhaps not. But Worksman has been around since 1898—once more suggesting that what goes around comes around. Zigo is the new kid on the block. And Feetz (whose product most appeals to us) is a Dutch company with a website available only in Dutch (here) and, so far as I can see, no visible representation in the United States.

The Zigo appears to be designed specifically to let you transport a child. The company’s spiffy website is a little bit too mobile, as it were. The images keep disappearing before you’ve had a good look at them, and the kind of technical presentations the prospective buyer longs for—seeing how the front-end carrier might be adjusted or enhanced or replaced with a different kind of accessory—can’t be found. This is a problem when, for us, the nearest dealer happens to be on Mackinac Island, thus a day’s driving away (at $4/gallon, a bit daunting).

The Zigo is priced at $1,399. Feetz is the price leader. The trike runs €1,498, but boy! does that product have features. When you turn left or right, the front wheels actually incline in the turn direction, thus this (/ /) way and (\ \) that. The mouth waters. But let’s now look at the oldest domestic product, Worksman. This company has been making industrial tricycles since the nineteenth century. Still around. It offers the right kind of bike for about $818 or thereabouts—or a four-wheeler for $1,199. Worksman, like Feetz, shows various carrier options, but the technology does not look quite as up-to-date.

Well, we have our work cut out for us. But that a trike is in our future seems pretty obvious. The curves point that way, don’t they? And most of our day-to-day shopping mileage is to drug- and grocery stories anyway. The economics? Tough decision. How long do we have ride a tricycle for shopping to save enough on gas to justfy the expenditures of $1,400 or thereabouts. If we want to save $20 per fill-up, and filling up every week, 70 weeks will do it, thus roughly a year-and-a-half.  If we only fill up once a month because we no longer use the car as often, the pay-out comes about six years out. Ah, numbers, numbers, numbers...




Pictures, top to bottom: Feetz product, ridden and pushed. The Worksman corporate logo. The Zigo machine with baby hood. The Worksman trike. The Feetz machines with two kinds of alternative carriers. Do not be confused by "Sandd"; that is a Feetz trike. And last, not least, the Worksman trike with its simplest platform carrier.