Mode Fuel Consumption Infrastructure Capacity Costs Safety
Railroad 455 ton-miles per gallon 216 million tons per mainline per year 2.7 cents per ton-mile 0.61 fatalities per billion ton-miles; 12.4 incidents per billion ton-miles
Trucking 105 ton-miles per gallon 37.8 million tons per lane per year 5.0 cents per ton-mile 1.45 fatalities per billion ton-miles; 36.4 incidents per billion ton-miles

Source: Brown, T.A and A.B. Hatch (2002) The Value of Rail Intermodal to the US Economy, http://www.aar.org/pubcommon/documents/govt/brown.pdf

Comparison of the Relative Efficiencies of Rail and Trucking

Rail transportation has obviously several key advantages over trucking, particularly in terms of energy efficiency (4 times), capacity (6 times) and costs (2 times).

Copyright © 1998-2008, Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Dept. of Economics & Geography, Hofstra University. For personal or classroom use ONLY. This material (including graphics) is not public domain and cannot be published, in whole or in part, in ANY form (printed or electronic) and on any media without consent. Permission MUST be requested prior to use.