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A passenger (also abbreviated as pax) is a person who travels in a
vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), wat ...
, 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 trains, airliners, ships,
ferryboat 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 tax ...
s, 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 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 A company car is a vehicle which companies or organisations lease or own and which employees use for their personal and business travel. Take-home vehicle is a vehicle which can be taken home by company employees. Depending on the company, company ...
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 The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, freight and passenger cars (or coaches), and non-revenue cars. Passenger vehicles can b ...
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 British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
case, there are several categories of passenger train. 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 Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tran ...
,
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 ta ...
,
repositioning cruise A repositioning cruise (repo cruise) is a cruise in which the embarkation port and the disembarkation port are different. This is a less common type of cruise; in the majority of cruises the ship's final destination is the same as the starting p ...
s 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 ''Öffentlichke ...
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 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 collision. It consists of the airbag cushion, a flexible fabric bag, an inflation module, and an impact sensor. T ...
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 Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...
.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 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 An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in whic ...
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 Passenger load factor, or load factor, measures the capacity utilization of public transport services like airlines, passenger railways, and intercity bus services. It is generally used to assess how efficiently a transport provider fills seats ...
. These measurements can further be used to measure unit revenues and unit costs.


References


External links

{{Authority control Transport