A passenger (also abbreviated as pax) is a person who travels in a
vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The vehicles may be
bicycle
A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
Bic ...
s,
bus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
es,
passenger train
A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self pr ...
s,
airliner
An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ...
s,
ships,
ferryboats, and other methods of transportation.
Crew members (if any), as well as the driver or pilot of the vehicle, are usually not considered to be passengers. For example, a
flight attendant
A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...
on an airline would not be considered a passenger while on duty and the same with those working in the
kitchen or restaurant on board a ship as well as cleaning staff, but an employee riding in a
company car being driven by another person would be considered a passenger, even if the car was being driven on company business.
Railways
In
railway parlance, passenger, as well as being the end user of a service, is also a categorisation of the type of
rolling stock used.
[Simmons, J. and Biddle, G. (Eds.): ''The Oxford Companion to British Railway History: From 1603 to the 1990s'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) ] In the
British case, there are several categories of
passenger train
A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self pr ...
.
These categories include:
*Express passenger, which constitutes long distance and high speed railway travel between major locations such as ports and cities.
*Semi-fast express passenger, a type of service that is high speed, though stops at selected destinations of high population density en route.
*Local passenger, the lowest category of British passenger train, which provides a service that stops at all stations between major destinations, for the benefit of local populations.
No pax
In transportation, a "no pax" trip is a trip without passengers. For example, no-pax flights are
freight,
ferry
A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...
,
repositioning cruises and positioning flights. Similarly, with a
public transit bus
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
it can be used at the beginning and end of a driver’s work shift to/from the bus terminal, or in the non-commute leg of a
commuter bus service.
In such cases, the main display signs on the front and curbside of the bus typically display a message such as “no pax” or “out of service” (sometimes abbreviated as “O/S”).
Legal status
In most jurisdictions, laws have been
enacted
Enactment may refer to:
Law
* Enactment of a bill, when a bill becomes law
* Enacting formula, formulaic words in a bill or act which introduce its provisions
* Enactment (British legal term), a piece of legislation or a legal instrument made un ...
that dictate the legal obligations of the owner of a vehicle or vessel, or of the
driver or
pilot of the same, towards the passengers. With respect to passengers riding in cars and vans, the driver may owe a duty of care to passengers, particularly where the passenger's presence in the vehicle can be seen to "confer some benefit on the driver other than the benefit of his or her company or the mere sharing of expenses". In other situations, however,
guest statutes may limit the ability of passengers to sue the driver of the vehicle over an accident. Many places require cars to be outfitted with measures specifically for the protection of passengers, such as passenger-side
air bag
An airbag is a vehicle occupant-restraint system using a bag designed to inflate extremely quickly, then quickly deflate during a Traffic collision, collision. It consists of the airbag cushion, a flexible fabric bag, an inflation module, and a ...
s. With respect to passengers on commercial vehicles or vessels, both national laws and international treaties require that the carrier act with a certain standard of care. The number of passengers that a vehicle or vessel may legally carry is defined as its
seating capacity.
[Lee Jr., Lawrence: ''Railway economics and passenger sociology'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).]
Types
Revenue passenger
A revenue passenger is someone who has paid a transport operator for her or his trip. That excludes non-paying passengers such as
airline employees flying on free or nearly-free passes, babies and
children
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
who do not have a seat of their own, etc. However, passengers who paid for their trip with a
frequent-flyer program
A frequent-flyer program (American English) or frequent-flyer programme (British English) is a loyalty program offered by an airline.
Many airlines have frequent-flyer programs designed to encourage airline customers enrolled in the program ...
mileage award are usually included.
This term is used in the transportation industry, in particular in
traffic measures such as revenue passenger kilometer (RPK) and
revenue passenger mile (RPM).
Revenue passenger kilometres
Revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) and revenue passenger miles (RPMs) are measures of
traffic for an
airline flight,
bus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
, or
train calculated by multiplying the number of revenue-paying passengers aboard the vehicle by the distance
traveled.
On long-distance buses and trains (and some planes), passengers may board and disembark at intermediate stops, in which case RPMs/RPKs have to be calculated for each segment if a careful total is needed.
Revenue passenger miles can be considered the basic amount of "production" that an airline creates. The revenue passenger miles can be compared to the
available seat miles over an airline's system to determine the overall
passenger load factor. These measurements can further be used to measure unit revenues and unit costs.
References
External links
{{Authority control
Transport