Majority of Commodities in the U.S. Still Transported by Road

The U.S. freight industry still heavily relies on road transportation via trucks, which have a 67 to 94 percent share in the transport of the top 5 commodities by value in 2023. Data from the U.S. Department of Transporation for the past year shows that moving goods exclusively via rail and water was a rarity in the United States. Multi-modal transport, which means cargo movement via two or more transportation modes, took second place behind trucks.

The importance of trucks was especially pronounced in the transportation of machinery (79 percent), motorized vehicles (83 percent) and mixed freight (94 percent). While the latter can include a variety of goods, in practice, it's mostly food items meant for supermarkets and restaurants. Air transport also played a negligible role in moving cargo across the country except for electronics. Here, 10 percent of all transport is undertaken by cargo plane or truck-air. Electronics were also by far the most valuable cargo with a total value of around $1.9 trillion moved in the past year.

Overall, goods transported via truck, plane, ship, train or a mix of the above amounted to around 55 million tons worth $19 trillion in 2023. This also translates to an increased environmental impact of the freight industry. For example, in 2022, heavy and medium freight vehicles were responsible for 25 percent of all emissions in the transportation sector, which stood at around seven billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in the corresponding timeframe, according to data from the International Energy Agency. This is despite trucks only making up a small fraction of the number of vehicles on the world's roads.