Transport and infrastructure in the United States
Our listing of the primary kinds of transport compares the infrastructure of the United States with the average of all countries in America. Overall, the traffic routes are above average and in good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, United States ranks 11th in the world with 0.89 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 293,564 kilometers long. Freight traffic on the rails most recently totaled 2,364.14 billion tons and kilometers traveled. Passenger traffic reached 31.96 billion passenger-kilometers in 2018.
The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the total 19,924 km of coastline. In 2020, about 54.96 million freight containers were transported.
› Airports in the United States
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Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 6.59 million km. For each of the country's 331.50 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 19.87 meters. This puts United States in 25th place in the global ranking. However, it is also important to note the country's population density, which is very low at around 34 inhabitants per km². Like this, disproportionately long distances generally have to be covered to reach the more remote parts of the country.With an average of 39405 traffic fatalities per year (2012 - 2019), road traffic in the United States is considered reasonably safe. This corresponds to around 4.3 accident fatalities per 12.2 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 5.9 in the European Union as a whole and 17.1 worldwide.
In the United States, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
United States | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 6,586,600 km | 19,869.05 km | 669.95 m |
| Railroads | 293,600 km | 885.56 km | 29.86 m |
| Waterways | 41,009 km | 123.71 km | 4.17 m |
| Commercial harbors | 3,627 | 10.94 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 13,513 | 40.76 | 1.374 |
North America | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 7,629,500 km | 20,638.95 km | 347.07 m |
| Railroads | 371,500 km | 1,004.96 km | 16.90 m |
| Waterways | 41,600 km | 112.66 km | 1.89 m |
| Commercial harbors | 4,461 | 12.07 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 14,998 | 40.57 | 0.001 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)
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