The Transportation and Warehousing sector (sector 48-49) includes industries providing transportation of passengers and cargo, warehousing and storage for goods, scenic and sightseeing transportation, and support activities related to modes of transportation. Establishments in these industries use transportation equipment or transportation related facilities as a productive asset. The type of equipment depends on the mode of transportation. The modes of transportation are air, rail, water, road, and pipeline.
The Transportation and Warehousing sector distinguishes three basic types of activities: subsectors for each mode of transportation, a subsector for warehousing and storage, and a subsector for establishments providing support activities for transportation. In addition, there are subsectors for establishments that provide passenger transportation for scenic and sightseeing purposes, postal services, and courier services.
A separate subsector for support activities is established in the sector because, first, support activities for transportation are inherently multimodal, such as freight transportation arrangement, or have multimodal aspects. Secondly, there are production process similarities among the support activity industries.
One of the support activities identified in the support activity subsector is the routine repair and maintenance of transportation equipment (e.g., aircraft at an airport, railroad rolling stock at a railroad terminal, or ships at a harbor or port facility). Such establishments do not perform complete overhauling or rebuilding of transportation equipment (i.e., periodic restoration of transportation equipment to original design specifications) or transportation equipment conversion (i.e., major modification to systems). An establishment that primarily performs factory (or shipyard) overhauls, rebuilding, or conversions of aircraft, railroad rolling stock, or a ship is classified in Subsector 336, Transportation Equipment Manufacturing according to the type of equipment.
Many of the establishments in this sector often operate on networks, with physical facilities, labor forces, and equipment spread over an extensive geographic area.
Warehousing establishments in this sector are distinguished from merchant wholesaling in that the warehouse establishments do not sell the goods.
The tabulations for this sector include warehousing establishments that primarily serve other establishments of the same enterprise.
Exclusions. The economic census does not include the following industries: NAICS 482, Railroad Transportation, and NAICS 491, Postal Service. Further, for NAICS 48111, Scheduled Air Transportation, data do not include large certificated passenger carriers that report to the Office of Airline Information, U.S. Department of Transportation. Also, excluded from this sector are establishments primarily engaged in providing travel agent services that support transportation and other establishments, such as hotels, businesses, and government agencies. These establishments are classified in Sector 56, Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services. Also, establishments primarily engaged in providing rental and leasing of transportation equipment without operator are classified in Subsector 532, Rental and Leasing Services.
The tabulations for this sector do not include central administrative offices or other establishments that serve transportation and warehousing establishments within the same organization. Data for such establishments are classified according to the nature of the service they provide. For example, separate headquarters establishments are reported in NAICS sector 55, Management of Companies and Enterprises.
The reports described below exclude establishments of firms with no paid employees. These “nonemployers,” typically self-employed individuals or partnerships operating businesses that they have not chosen to incorporate, are reported separately in Nonemployer Statistics. The contribution of nonemployers, relatively large for this sector, may be examined at www.census.gov/nonemployerimpact.
Definitions. Industry categories are defined in Appendix B, NAICS Codes, Titles, and Descriptions. Other terms are defined in Appendix A, Explanation of Terms.
The following reports provide statistics on this sector.
Industry Series. There are nine reports, each covering a group of related industries. The reports present, by kind of business for the United States, general statistics for establishments of firms with payroll on number of establishments, revenue, payroll, and employment; comparative statistics for 2002 and 1997; product lines; and concentration of business activity in the largest firms. The data in industry reports are preliminary and subject to change in the following reports.
Geographic Area Series. There is a separate report for each state, the District of Columbia, and the United States. Each state report presents, for establishments of firms with payroll, general statistics on number of establishments, revenue, payroll, and employment by kind of business for the state and metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas. Greater kind-of-business detail is shown for larger areas. The United States report presents data for the United States as a whole for detailed kind-of-business classifications.
Subject Series:
Other reports. Data for this sector are also included in reports with multisector coverage, including Nonemployer Statistics, Comparative Statistics, Bridge Between 2002 NAICS and 1997 NAICS, Business Expenses, and the Survey of Business Owners reports.
The level of geographic detail varies by report. Maps are available at www.census.gov/econ2002maps. Notes specific to areas in the state are included in Appendix D, Geographic Notes. Data may be presented for –
All dollar values presented are expressed in current dollars; i.e., 2002 data are expressed in 2002 dollars, and 1997 data, in 1997 dollars. Consequently, when making comparisons with prior years, users of the data should consider the changes in prices that have occurred.
All dollar values are shown in thousands of dollars.
Both the 2002 Economic Census and the 1997 Economic Census present data based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). While there were revisions to some industries for 2002, none of those affect this sector.
These tables for 2002 include transportation and warehousing establishments that primarily serve other establishments of the same enterprise. These “enterprise support” establishments were not included in data for this sector in 1997, but were instead included in the “Other auxiliary establishments” kind-of-business category in the “Auxiliaries, Excluding Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices” reports.
All data compiled for this sector are subject to nonsampling errors. Nonsampling errors can be attributed to many sources: inability to identify all cases in the actual universe; definition and classification difficulties; differences in the interpretation of questions; errors in recording or coding the data obtained; and other errors of collection, response, coverage, processing, and estimation for missing or misreported data. Data presented in the Miscellaneous Subjects and Product Lines reports for this sector are subject to sampling errors, as well as nonsampling errors.
The accuracy of these tabulated data is determined by the joint effects of the various nonsampling errors or by the joint effects of sampling and nonsampling errors. No direct measurement of these effects has been obtained except for estimation for missing or misreported data, as by the percentages shown in the tables. Precautionary steps were taken in all phases of the collection, processing, and tabulation of the data in an effort to minimize the effects of nonsampling errors. More information on the reliability of the data is included in Appendix C, Methodology.
In accordance with federal law governing census reports (Title 13 of the United States Code), no data are published that would disclose the operations of an individual establishment or business. However, the number of establishments in a kind-of-business classification is not considered a disclosure; therefore, this information may be released even though other information is withheld. Techniques employed to limit disclosure are discussed at www.census.gov/epcd/ec02/disclosure.htm.
The Census Bureau conducts the Service Annual Survey (SAS) each year. This survey, while providing more frequent observations, yields less kind-of-business and geographic detail than the economic census. In addition, the County Business Patterns program offers annual statistics on the number of establishments, employment, and payroll classified by industry within each county, and Statistics of U.S. Businesses provides annual statistics classified by the employment size of the enterprise, further classified by industry for the United States, and by broader categories for states and metropolitan areas.
Questions about these data may be directed to the U.S. Census Bureau, Service Sector Statistics Division, Utilities and Financial Census Branch, 1-800-541-8345 or ucb@census.gov.
The following abbreviations and symbols are used with these data:
| D | Withheld to avoid disclosing data of individual companies; data are included in higher level totals |
| N | Not available or not comparable |
| S | Withheld because estimates did not meet publication standards |
| X | Not applicable |
| Z | Less than half the unit shown |
| a | 0 to 19 employees |
| b | 20 to 99 employees |
| c | 100 to 249 employees |
| e | 250 to 499 employees |
| f | 500 to 999 employees |
| g | 1,000 to 2,499 employees |
| h | 2,500 to 4,999 employees |
| i | 5,000 to 9,999 employees |
| j | 10,000 to 24,999 employees |
| k | 25,000 to 49,999 employees |
| l | 50,000 to 99,999 employees |
| m | 100,000 employees or more |
| r | Revised |
| – | Represents zero (page image/print only) |
| (CC) | Consolidated city |
| (IC) | Independent city |
| CDP | Census designated place |