Dr. Paul Kent is Major Contributor to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics Annual Transportation Statistics Report
Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) issued its 2022 edition of its Transportation Statistics Annual Report. By legislative mandate, BTS is required to address the state of the U.S. transportation system, freight logistics, transportation economics, safety, energy and sustainability, and the state of transportation statistics. COVID-19’s effects on transport modes are covered throughout the report.
Dr. Paul Kent, Monument’s Port and Logistics expert, was the main contributor for the Annual Report’s Chapter 3 — Freight and Supply Chain. Using BTS data, he showed that U.S. East Coast Asian container volumes for the first time exceeded U.S. West Coast Asian freight volumes in 2021, likely due to improved U.S. East Coast connectivity to liner shipping networks, enabling the diversion of some Asian trade volumes from the U.S. West Coast to U.S. East Coast ports. Among Chapter 3’s other highlights:
- Nearly 40% of the U.S. gross output in 2020 (valued at about $12.22 trillion) relied on the Nation’s transportation and logistics sector, itself contributing an output of $565 billion;
- In terms of freight value, John F. Kennedy International Airport and Chicago airports were ranked as 2020’s top two international freight gateways, with the U.S.-Mexico land border post in Laredo and the Port of Los Angeles ranked 3rd and 4th, respectively;
- Trucks transported 12 billion tons in 2019, or 67 percent of total domestic freight volume — about 10 times more than that of rail, the United States’ third-ranked mode by freight volume;
- Substantial foreign direct investment in Mexico in 2022, particularly from the nearshoring of U.S. companies, will likely mean an increase in cross border trade flows, with trucking continuing its modal dominance and a shifting of some freight flows from U.S. coastal ports to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Dr. Kent’s chapter can be read here. The entire report is available at https://www.bts.gov/tsar. Also, BTS provides an impressive range of transportation statistics for all transport modes online (https://data.bts.gov/). Data addressing COVID-19’s impact on freight transport are available here: https://lnkd.in/esBJ-JqD