| Trip ton-miles is a measure of a single waterway's contribution to the whole waterway
system. Trip ton-miles are computed by identifying every commercial cargo-carrying vessel that has plied a particular
inland waterway and summing the products of the tons times the total trip-miles for each vessel trip.
"Trip-miles" is the total distance from origin to destination. For example, a barge carrying 1200 tons of
wheat might only travel 30 miles on the Illinois River but its total trip to New Orleans might be 1000 miles. This
trip would contribute 1,200,000 trip ton-miles to the Illinois River. Small rivers often contribute to the traffic
on larger rivers. |
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| Domestic Traffic for Selected U.S. Inland Waterways in 2001 (Millions of Short Tons, Billions of Ton-miles1 and Change from 2000) |
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| Trip2 | |||||||
| Length | Tons | Ton-Miles | Ton-Miles | ||||
| Waterway | (miles) | 2001 | % | 2001 | % | 2001 | % |
| Atlantic Coast | |||||||
| Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, VA-FL | 793 | 2.5 | -20.1 | 0.1 | -20.0 | 0.3 | -3.1 |
| Intracoastal Wtwy, Jacksonville to Miami, FL | 349 | 1.0 | 18.5 | ** | -59.3 | ** | -42.6 |
| Gulf Coast | |||||||
| Bayou Teche, LA | 107 | 1.7 | 10.4 | 0.1 | 12.2 | 0.6 | 5.9 |
| Black Warrior and Tombigbee Rivers, AL | 449 | 18.9 | -19.4 | 3.2 | -36.0 | 6.6 | -21.5 |
| Chocolate Bayou, TX | 13 | 3.4 | -11.4 | ** | -2.1 | 0.9 | 12.1 |
| Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, TX-FL | 1109 | 112.2 | -1.4 | 18.0 | -3.7 | 55.5 | -3.0 |
| GIWW: Morgan City-Port Allen Route, LA | 64 | 23.3 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 1.8 | 21.7 | -0.7 |
| Petit Anse, Tigre, Carlin Bayous, LA | 16 | 3.1 | 19.7 | ** | 15.9 | 3.7 | 26.0 |
| Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, AL and MS | 234 | 6.8 | -3.6 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 4.1 | -0.6 |
| Mississippi River System | |||||||
| Allegheny River, PA | 72 | 3.0 | -21.9 | ** | -27.5 | 1.4 | -0.3 |
| Atchafalaya River, LA | 121 | 11.6 | -14.0 | 0.7 | -18.4 | 7.2 | -16.8 |
| Big Sandy River, KY and WV | 27 | 24.2 | 3.0 | 0.2 | 4.5 | 7.5 | -2.3 |
| Cumberland River, KY and TN | 381 | 23.2 | 2.2 | 2.4 | 3.7 | 10.5 | 2.0 |
| Green and Barren Rivers, KY | 109 | 7.8 | 88.7 | 0.5 | 114.6 | 3.9 | 130.1 |
| Illinois Waterway, IL | 357 | 43.5 | -1.7 | 8.7 | -3.0 | 43.8 | -3.0 |
| Kanawha River, WV | 91 | 22.2 | -1.4 | 1.5 | -1.3 | 10.5 | 8.0 |
| McClellan-Kerr Arkansas R. Nav. Sys., AR/OK | 462 | 11.2 | 4.4 | 2.4 | 6.6 | 6.6 | 1.1 |
| Mississippi River Mpls, MN to Mouth of Passes | 1814 | 316.5 | -3.3 | 180.1 | -2.9 | 268.9 | -3.8 |
| Minneapolis, MN to Mouth of Missouri River | 663 | 78.8 | -5.4 | 14.4 | -10.1 | 88.4 | -5.3 |
| Mouth of Missouri R. to Mouth of Ohio R. | 195 | 119.1 | -2.1 | 19.7 | -1.4 | 123.1 | -2.8 |
| Mouth of Ohio River up to Baton Rouge, LA | 720 | 200.7 | -1.8 | 123.1 | -2.0 | 210.0 | -3.0 |
| Baton Rouge up to New Orleans, LA3 | 130 | 220.0 | -2.7 | 17.4 | -3.4 | 214.7 | -3.6 |
| New Orleans, LA to Mouth of Passes3 | 106 | 116.7 | -3.8 | 5.4 | -5.0 | 102.1 | -2.0 |
| Missouri R. (MO, KS, NE & IA) to Sioux City, IA | 732 | 9.7 | 11.4 | 0.6 | -9.9 | 1.5 | -8.6 |
| Monongahela River, PA and WV | 129 | 38.1 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 2.9 | 7.7 | -9.5 |
| Ohio River, PA, WV, OH, KY, IN, and IL | 981 | 242.5 | 2.6 | 58.7 | 1.7 | 132.3 | -1.6 |
| Ouachita and Black Rivers, AR and LA | 332 | 1.6 | 6.7 | 0.2 | 4.3 | 0.7 | -4.0 |
| Red River, LA | 212 | 3.7 | -2.1 | 0.3 | -5.0 | 2.3 | -5.9 |
| Tennessee River, TN, KY, MS and AL | 652 | 47.9 | -3.3 | 6.5 | -12.0 | 26.5 | -6.1 |
| Pacific Coast | |||||||
| Columbia River System, OR, WA, and ID | 596 | 20.2 | -12.2 | 0.7 | -17.3 | 6.9 | -12.7 |
| Columbia River and Willamette River | |||||||
| below Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR3 | 113 | 19.8 | -11.6 | 0.9 | -15.4 | 6.8 | -12.5 |
| Vancouver, WA to The Dalles, OR | 85 | 9.8 | -8.2 | 0.8 | -8.7 | 2.3 | -12.7 |
| The Dalles Dam to McNary Lock and Dam | 100 | 8.9 | -9.2 | 0.8 | -14.9 | 2.3 | -13.5 |
| Above McNary L & D to Kennewick, WA | 39 | 6.7 | -14.6 | 0.2 | -15.4 | 1.9 | -15.7 |
| Snake River (WA and ID) to Lewiston, ID | 141 | 5.6 | -15.9 | 0.3 | -20.1 | 1.7 | -16.3 |
| Willamette River above Portland, OR | 118 | 1.6 | 83.7 | ** | 15.1 | 0.1 | 385.2 |
1. ** denotes ton-miles of less than 50 million. 2. Tons times total distance from origin to destination. 3. Includes deep draft waterways. |
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