Air Travel Slowed, but be Glad You Weren't on a Train!

The Bureau of Travel Statistics has just issued BTS Issue Brief Number 7, "Many Intercity Travelers Face Longer Travel Schedules." It's a sad tale of a nation mired in... slowness.

People traveling between many major cities encountered air, rail and bus schedules requiring more travel time in 2002 than in 1995, according to new findings by the U.S. Department of  Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS).

BTS studied 261 city-pair markets and found that:

• Since 1995, scheduled travel times for direct intercity air, bus and rail service without an enroute transfer measurably lengthened in most major-market city pairs.
• From 1995 to 2002, scheduled travel time lengthened for direct service in 68 percent of air markets, 61 percent of rail markets and 52 percent of bus markets.
• The largest percentage increases in airline trip times came in the shorter-distance city-pairs that were studied.

The largest increases in scheduled travel time were:

• Air: Pittsburgh-Washington Dulles, 27%; and Los Angeles-San Diego, 22%.
• Rail: Los Angeles-Salt Lake City, 129%; and Minneapolis-St. Louis, 105%.
• Bus: Pittsburgh-Atlanta, 18%; New York-Charlotte, N.C., and Los Angeles-Las Vegas, 14%.

FMI: www.bts.gov