Abbrevia

ti ons
523

Abbreviations 

3-R Act Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 

4-R Act Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 

AAR Association of American Railroads 

AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 

AES Automated Export System 

AFTC Agricultural and Food Transporters Conference 

AMS Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA 

ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers 

ATA American Trucking Association 

BEA Bureau of Economic Analysis 

BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics 

BN Burlington Northern Railroad 

BNSF Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway 

BSE Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, popularly called “mad cow 

disease” 

Btu British thermal unit 

CAAP San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan 

CADRS Consumer Affairs and Dispute Resolution Services, FMC 

CAGR Compound annual growth rate 

CAPM Capital Asset Pricing Model, a method of estimating the cost of equity 

CARB California Air Resources Board 

CBO Congressional Budget Office 

CBP Customs and Border Protection 

CCC Commodity Credit Corporation 

CFS Commodity Flow Survey 

CMP Constrained Market Pricing 

CN Canadian National Railways 

COFC Container on flat car, shipping container carried by rail 

Corps U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

CP Canadian Pacific Railway 

CRD USDA’s Crop Reporting Districts 

CSX CSX Transportation, a Class I railroad 

CVSA Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance 

CWS Carload Waybill Sample 

DCF Discounted Cash Flow, a method of estimating the cost of equity 

DDGS Dried distillers grains with solubles, a co-product of distilling corn 

ethanol 

DOT U.S. Department of Transportation <www.dot.gov> 

DRIA Draft Regulatory Impact Analysis 

dwt Deadweight tonnage; The total carrying capacity of a ship in metric 

tons. 
524

EBIT Earnings before interest and taxes 

EBITDA Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization 

EIA U.S. Energy Information Administration, DOE <www.eia.doe.gov> 

ERS Economic Research Service, USDA <www.ers.usda.gov> 

EPA U.S. Environment Protection Agency 

EU European Union 

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 

<http://www.fao.org> 

FGIS Federal Grain Inspection Service, GIPSA, USDA 

FAF Freight Analysis Framework, a DOT database 

FAS Foreign Agriculture Service, USDA <www.fas.usda.gov> 

FATUS Foreign Agricultural Trade of the United States 

<http://www.fas.usda.gov/ustrade/USTExFatus.asp?QI> 

FCS Freight Commodities Statistics 

FHWA Federal Highway Administration, DOT 

FIPS Federal Information Processing Standards, geographic region used by 

Commerce’s NIST 

FEU Forty-foot equivalent unit, a standard size of shipping container. 

Equivalent to two TEUs 

FFV Flex Fuel Vehicles 

FMC Federal Maritime Commission 

FRA Federal Railway Administration, DOT 

FTR Foreign Trade Regulations 

FY Fiscal year 

GAO Government Accountability Office 

GDP Gross Domestic Product 

GIPSA Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, USDA 

GIS Geographic Information System; map-making software 

HHI Herfindahl-Hirschman Indices, an economic analysis tool 

HMTF Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, 

hp Horsepower 

ICC Interstate Commerce Commission 

ICCTA The Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995 

ILUC Indirect Land Use Change 

IWUB Inland Waterways Users Board 

IWTF Inland Waterways Trust Fund 

KCPL Kansas City Power & Light 

KCS Kansas City Southern Railway, a Class I railroad 

kwh Kilowatt hours 

LCFS Low Carbon Fuel Standard 

LMI Lerner Markup Indexes 

M&NA Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad 

MARAD Maritime Administration, DOT 

mdwt Million deadweight tons 
525

mgy million gallons per year 

mmt Million metric tons 

MSDCF Multi-stage discounted cash flow model, a method of estimating the 

cost of equity 

NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement 

NASS National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA 

<http://www.nass.usda.gov> 

NCEP National Commission on Energy Policy 

NESP Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program 

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology, Commerce 

NFDM Non-fat dry milk 

NGFA National Grain and Feed Association 

NOx Nitrogen Oxides. Gases produced during combustion of fossil fuels in 

motor vehicles, power plants, industrial furnaces, and other sources. 

NOx is a pre-cursor to acid rain and ground-level ozone. 

NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 

NRECA National Rural Electric Cooperative Association 

NS Norfolk Southern, a Class I railroad 

OASDI Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust 

Funds 

ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratories 

OSRA Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998 

OTI Ocean transportation intermediary, also known as freight forwarders or 

non-vessel operating common carriers 

PCI per capita income 

PIERS Port Import Export Reporting Service <www.piers.com> 

PNW Pacific Northwest 

PRB Powder River Basin Region, a coal-producing region of Wyoming and 

Montana 

RBOB Reformulated gasoline blendstock for oxygenate blending, unfinished 

gasoline that will be blended with ethanol to make finished gasoline 

RFA Renewable Fuels Association 

RIA Railroad Industry Agreement 

RD Rural Development, USDA 

ROI Return on investment 

RO-RO Roll on-Roll off. A type of ship designed for wheeled cargo that is 

driven on at the origin and off at the destination. 

RPM AAR’s Railroad Performance Measures 

RPTM Revenue per ton-mile, a measure of the cost to transport commodities 

RRIF Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing, a Federal loan 

program 

RSAM Revenue Shortfall Allocation Method, an STB test used in rate disputes 

R/VC ratio Revenue-to-variable cost, used by the STB 
526

SAC Stand-Alone Cost, a method used to estimate the fair cost of running a 

railroad in rate disputes 

SAFETEA-LU Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A 

Legacy for Users, Public Law 109-59 

SARR Stand-Alone Cost Railroad, a hypothetical railroad used to estimate 

shipping costs in railroad rate disputes 

Soo line U.S. subsidiary of Canadian Pacific railroad 

Staggers Act Staggers Rail Act of 1980 

STB Surface Transportation Board. A regulatory agency charged with 

resolving railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed 

railroad mergers. The STB is decisionally independent, but affiliated 

with the Department of Transportation. <www.stb.dot.gov>, The STB 

replaced the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1997. 

STCC code Standard Transportation Commodity Code. A Standard numerical code 

used by the railroads and motor carrier to classify products. 

TEU Twenty-foot equivalent unit, a standard size of shipping container used 

in describing container ship capacity. 

TOFC Trailer on flat car, truck trailers transported on trains 

TRG Transportation Research Group, WSU 

TMP Transportation and Marketing Programs, AMS, USDA 

TSD Transportation Services Division, AMS, TMP, USDA 

TTI Texas Transportation Institute 

UMR-IW Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway 

UP Union Pacific Railroad 

URCS Uniform Regulatory Costing System, an STB accounting method. 

USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture <www.usda.gov> 

USPPI U.S. Principal Party of Interest 

USWA United States Warehouse Act 

VEETC Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit 

Vloc Very large ore carrier; a bulk cargo ship with a capacity of over 200,000 

deadweight tons 

WRDA 86 Water Resource Development Act of 1986 

WFB Waterways Freight Bureau 

WRDA 2007 Water Resource Development Act of 2007 

WSU Washington State University 

WTO World Trade Organization <www.wto.org>