Methodology for estimating own-account transportation

The methodology used to develop the CTEA is similar to that used by the United States to develop its Transportation Satellite Accounts[4]. In general, the task is to identify the inputs used by non-transportation industries to produce OATS and to reassign them to the newly created OATS industries. The first step of this process is to partition the use tables of non-transportation industries into inputs used to produce OATS by mode and inputs used to produce non-transportation outputs.

The inputs used by non-transportation industries to produce OATS are divided into three groups:

• transportation-related inputs (TRIs): inputs critical for the operation of a transportation vehicle in a specific mode (e.g., fuel, repair, maintenance
• non-transportation-related inputs (nTRIs): inputs not unique to transportation but that support OATS activities (e.g. office supplies, electricity
• value added: wages and benefits paid to vehicle operators and other support staff, taxes less subsidies on production, any gross mixed income and gross operating surplus generated in the production of OATS.

The approach to estimating the OATS outputs and inputs of non-transportation industries involves the following steps:

1. Identify the unique inputs used predominantly for transportation.
2. Estimate the portion of these inputs’ total supply that is available for OATS activities.
3. Spread the total-supply aggregate over the non-transportation industries. This allocation is done in proportion to the industries’ transportation employment count related to a given transportation mode according to data from the census.
4. In proportion to the allocated level of the TRIs in a given transportation mode, estimate a) the nTRIs, b) the margins on inputs, and c) the value added.
5. Rearrange the supply and use tables.