Passengers sleeping on a train. Passengers on a boat in the Danube delta A passenger is a term broadly used to describe any person who travels in a vehicle, but bears little or no responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination.

There are two common contexts in which the term is used:

• The first is for persons transported in automobiles or vans, irrespective of whether they have paid for the transportation.
• The second is for persons who pay to be transported in common carriers, including commercial vehicles and vessels such as buses, trains, airplanes, and ships. For example, a flight attendant on an airline or a cruise ship employee aboard such a ship would not be considered a "passenger" while aboard the vessel, 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.

Position

• Front passengers are situated near the driver.
• Rear passengers are behind the driver in the back seats.

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) ISBN 0192116975 In the British 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.