The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), part of the U.S. Research and Innovative Technology Administration, has released a report that explores transportation satellite accounts (TSAs). TSAs provide a means for measuring the contribution of transportation services to the national economy.
According to the BTS, prior to the TSAs, the magnitude of transportation services had long been underestimated, as most national measures counted only the value of for-hire services.
Measurement of services provided only by for-hire firms misses the sizable contribution of transportation services that take place within non-transportation industries, termed as in-house transportation.