Transportation Sector

Sector Chiefs:

VACANT

Sector Overview

The Transportation Systems Sector is overseen and coordinated by the combined efforts of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation. Playing a crucial role in the American economy, the sector enables quick, safe, and secure movement of both people and commodities across the country and overseas.

This sector holds within its structure seven critical subsectors:

  • Aviation: The aviation subsector embraces aircraft, air traffic control systems, nearly 450 commercial airports and an extensive assortment of 19,000 other airports, landing strips, and heliports. This category involves civil airports that are also used for military purposes, short takeoff and landing ports, as well as seaplane bases.
  • Highway Infrastructure and Motor Carrier: This subsector contains about 4 million miles of roads, around 600,000 bridges, and approximately 400 tunnels scattered across 35 states. Vehicles under this classification range from personal cars and motorcycles to hazardous material carrying trucks, commercial freight vehicles, motorcoaches and school buses.
  • Maritime Transportation System: This system entails approximately 95,000 miles of coastlines, 361 ports, around 25,000 miles of navigable waterways, about 3.4 million square miles within the Exclusive Economic Zone, and landside intermodal connections that allow numerous transportation modes to transfer people and merchandise to, from, and across bodies of water.
  • Mass Transit and Passenger Rail: This category includes the services provided by buses, rail transit services such as commuter rail systems, heavy rail restrictions (commonly known as metros or subways), as well as light rail systems including trolleys and streetcars. It also encompasses the intercity and state rail services, specifically Amtrak and the Alaska Railroad, and other unique services like cable cars, inclined planes, funiculars, and automated guideway systems.
  • Pipeline Systems: Extensive networks of pipelines take position in this subsector, crossing hundreds of thousands of miles across the country. These pipelines are responsible for transporting almost all of the country’s natural gas and about 65% of hazardous liquids, along with several chemicals. The system contains roughly 2.2 million miles of natural gas distribution pipelines, more than 168,900 miles of hazardous liquid pipelines, and over 109 liquified natural gas processing and storage facilities.
  • Freight Rail: The freight rail subsector comprises seven major carriers, countless smaller railroads, over 140,000 miles of active railroad tracks, more than a 1.3 million freight cars, and approximately 20,000 locomotives. Moreover, daily operations see over 12,000 trains in action. The Department of Defense has recognized about 30,000 miles of track and supporting structure as crucial for mobilization and resupply of U.S. forces.
  • Postal and Shipping: This final subsector is responsible for delivering over 574 million messages, products, and financial transactions each day. Distinguished from general cargo operations by its focus on mails, publications or small to medium size packages and servicing from millions of senders to nearly 152 million recipients.

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