public; however, Section 4 of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act, 1965 (Public Law 89-220), authorized the Secretary of Commerce to:

..collect and collate transportation data, statistics, and other information which he determines will contribute to the improvement of the national transportation system. In carrying out this activity, the Secretary shall utilize the data, statistics, and other information available from Federal agencies and other sources to the greatest practicable extent. The data, statistics, and other information collected under this section shall be made available to other Federal agencies and to the public insofar as practicable.

This authority, which was subsequently transferred to the Secretary of Transportation, relates to national transportation statistics and other information which will contribute to the improvement of the national transportation system. The statutory expiration date of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act does not apply to this section.

Thus, it has been declared by Congress to be in the Nation's interest and the Secretary of Transportation has been given the responsibility to collect and disseminate information that would lead to the improvement of the national transportation system. In addition, Congress has provided the Secretary with the authority to collect specific types of data under various legislative acts relating to individual modes. The Department of Transportation is not the only agency charged with the responsibility to collect transportation statistics. Under Title 13, U.S.C., Section 131 (Census).

The Secretary of Commerce shall take, compile, and publish census of manufactures, of mineral industries, and of other businesses, including the distributive trades, service establishments, and transportation (exclusive of means of transportation for which statistics are required by law to be filed with, and are compiled and published by, a designated regulatory body) in the year 1964, and then in the year 1968, and every fifth year thereafter, and each such census shall relate to the year immediately preceding the taking thereof.

Under Title 49, U.S.C., Section 20(1), the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

...is authorized to require annual, periodical, or special reports from transportation carriers, lessors, and associates (as defined in this section), to prescribe the manner and form in which such reports shall be made, and to require from such carriers, lessors, and associations specific and full, true, and correct answers to all questions upon

which the Commission may deem information to be necessary....

The carriers subject to regulation are specified in Section 1. Section 913 expands the Commission's authority to collect data from water carriers. Section 20(3) gives the Commission the authority to prescribe a uniform system of accounts by which to capture the information.

Under Title 49, U.S.C., Section 1377(a), the Civil Aeronautics Board

...is empowered to require annual, monthly, periodical and special reports from any air carrier, to prescribe the manner and form in which reports shall be made, and to require from any air carrier answers to all questions upon which the Board may deem information to be necessary....

Title 29 U.S.C., Section 2 states that:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, under the direction of the Secretary of Labor, shall collect, collate, and report at least once each year, or more often if necessary, full and complete statistics of the conditions of labor and the products and distribution of the products of the same... (italics added).

Further,

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shall also collect, collate, report and publish at least once each month full and complete statistics of the volume of and changes in employment, as indicated by the number of persons employed, the total wages paid, and the total hours of employment...in the following industries and their principal branches:...(5) transportation, communication and other public utilities....

Several sections of Title 15 (relating to Commerce and Trade) give the Department of Commerce the authority to collect transportation related statistics. In particular, Section 182 states that:

...shall collect, digest, and arrange, for the use of Congress, the statistics of the manufactures of the United States, their localities, sources of raw material, markets, exchanges with the producing regions of the country, transportation of products, wages and such other conditions as are found to affect their prosperity.

The requirement to report these statistics to Congress is made in Section 183.

In addition to the ICC authority to collect statistics from water carriers (Title 49 U.S.C. Section 913) noted earlier, the Corps of Engineers (COE) is

authorized to collect freight statistics under Title 49 U.S.C., Section 553 which states:

In the collection of statistics relating to traffic, the Corps of Engineers is directed to adopt a uniform system of classification for freight, and upon rivers or inland waterways to collate ton-mileage statistics as far as practicable.

The ICC and COE authorities when combined with that of the Secretary of Commerce under Title 49 U.S.C., Section 142 provides general coverage of inland waterway statistics. The latter section states:

...It shall...be the province and the duty of Secretary of Commerce to compile, publish and distribute from time to time, such useful statistics, data and information concerning transportation or inland waterways as he may deem to be of value to the commercial interest of the country.....

Finally, the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture has the authority to collect transportation related statistics under numerous sections of Title 15 U.S.C. Specifically, Section 1622(k) authorizes the Secretary:

To collect, tabulate, and disseminate statistics on marketing agricultural products, including, but not restricted to statistics on market supplies, storage stocks, quantity, and condition of such products in various positions in marketing channel, utilization of such products, and shipments and unloads thereof (italics added).

Thus, when all agencies of the Federal Government are considered collectively, the Federal Government has the authority to collect a wide spectrum of statistics relating to transportation.

Federal Requirements Related to State and Local
Planning

Data are required for the purpose of assisting State and local governments in planning, administering, and evaluating their transportation programs which are financed under Federal aid programs. Under various statutes, the Federal Government provides funds for State and local planning, research, and development activities and for compiling information needed for these purposes. It requires the adoption of a cooperative, comprehensive, and coordinated (3-C) planning process which is specified in the Federal regulations. The data collected under this process relate to the specific data needs of the various jurisdictions. And these needs may differ depending upon the mix of programs developed by the community.

The responsibility of the Federal Government in these programs is primarily one of assuring that the program decisions made by State and local governments are based on a sound planning process, accurate information, and an adequate consideration of alternativies. To gain this assurance, State and local governments are required to adopt a uniform (3-C) planning process. To satisfy the Federal requirements for this process, periodic information must be collected including: inventories of highways, highway and transit travel characteristics, transit financial and operating characteristics, and so forth. The actual process of collecting the data involves a cooperative effort of Federal, State, and local governments and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO's). In some cases Federal agencies (e.g., Bureau of the Census) collect the data and disseminate it to State and local agencies. In other cases State agencies (e.g., State departments of transportation or highway departments) are the primary data collectors. Similarly, MPO's often conduct special surveys and coordinate statistical activities associated with their specific areas.

Although the information collected by State and local governments in the federally required planning process is primarily for local planning purposes, much of the information is also needed for national planning, program development, and program evaluation. A National Urban Transportation Reporting System (UTRS) is proposed in a subsequent section which is designed for reporting to the Federal Government key data items developed under these programs. In addition, under Section 15(a) of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, a reporting system has been prescribed to accumulate uniform financial and operating information regarding public mass transportation to meet the planning needs of Federal, State, and local governments, individual public mass transportation systems, as well as the general public.

Information Collection and Data Management Issues

A substantial amount of information about the transportation system and its effect on people and on businesses is required for Federal planning and program development purposes. Planning at the local, regional and national levels cannot proceed without information about how people travel, from where to where, with what frequency, how goods are shipped, through which routings, by which modes and how all of these factors impact on the development and utilization of land.

However, information is not a free good. In addition to the dollar costs associated with collecting

and processing data, those who request it must always remember that in the process of answering surveys or regulatory inquiries, information suppliers are also incurring costs and perhaps giving up some of their privacy. As modal agencies and the various governmental and private entities at many levels seek more information on which to base decisions, the burden on information suppliers can become intolerable. Recent experience indicates there is a declining response rate to all statistical surveys, undoubtedly because both individuals and businesses are increasingly concerned about the volume of requests for information they receive and have elected to become more selective in their responses (see more detailed discussion of this point in the chapter on reporting burden). Because there is a real need for information on which to base good policy and business decisions at all levels, information suppliers should be asked to provide only the least possible amount of information necessary to serve the purpose. Redundancy in information requests should be eliminated; otherwise a situation could develop whereby individuals and businesses decline to provide information to the government for public policy formulation and implementation except under duress of law. Clearly, approaches must be found which minimize the burden of the collection of information and maximize the usefulness of that which is collected.

The Federal Government's transportation statistics program has historically focused on individual modes, that is, highway, water, rail, pipeline, and air transport, primarily because the Federal objective has been to foster and/or regulate the particular mode. As a result, the transportation agencies primarily or exclusively focused their statistical efforts on their modal concern. Three major problems associated with this modal focus are: 1. It is more difficult to examine intermodal issues and perform intermodal analyses. Intermodal analyses require statistical designs which emphasize comparability of statistical series among modes. Current series are not satisfactory in this respect, and there is little incentive for individual modal agencies to consider comparability.

2. Although there have been attempts to improve the coordination of statistical programs among agencies concerned with the transportation system, there is still a fragmentation of effort with respect to statistical designs. Within the Department of Transportation, no operating administration has the specific requirement or the expertise to consider the design of the transportation statistics programs in their

entirety. As a result, there are still redundancies, gaps, and inconsistencies in the information collected. This leads to unnecessary burdens on the information suppliers as well as less effective use of the information that is supplied.

3. Many of the current and future transportation issues relate to highly localized geographical areas and are of multimodal concern. Again, this requires a multimodal viewpoint and statistical designs specific to the geographical

area.

Alternatives are presented in the last section of this chapter which discusses various organizational options, including a transportation statistics center. This concept involves the combination of DOT's statistical organizations into a single statistical

center.

Major Transportation Statistics Programs

A tremendous amount of statistical data is reported to, or collected by, the DOT operating administrations and other Federal agencies. Some of the data are collected pursuant to statutory mandates placed on the respective organizations by Congress. Most of the data serve as the basis for policy formulation and decisionmaking within DOT and most of the data sets involved also fulfill a monitoring function. These specific-purpose data sets have also found increasing use in more general transportation planning and research studies. This section provides a brief description of some of the more pertinent data bases collected and maintained by Federal agencies.

Multicategory Programs

Multicategory programs are those which have comprehensive systems involving several of the program categories. Taken together, the four programs described below provide a comprehensive set of domestic transportation statistics which help to track the progress and performance of the Nation's transportation modes.

Highway Statistics Program.-The following data are submitted to the Federal Highway Administration primarily by State highway agencies:

Highway Facilities: Highway mileage by system, type of surface, geographic area, administration,

etc.

Highway Equipment: Vehicle registration, drivers' licenses

Highway Utilization: Motor vehicle travel, truck operations, speeds

Financial: Highway finance (receipts and disbursements), construction costs and price trends, State taxation (fuels, licenses and fees) Safety: Highway fatalities and injuries Energy Consumption: Motor fuel consumption and use (highway and nonhighway).

The data are summarized in annual highway statistical publications which provide data and information used in planning and policy studies, congressional reports on legislative issues, and preparation of testimony both within and outside of government at all levels. This information is also used

to:

-Develop cost and usage trends on highway construction contracts, materials, and equipment; -Prepare, compile and analyze the estimate of costs for completing the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways as required by Title 23 U.S.C. 104(b) 5 and other related reports. Develop and implement procedures for reporting and measuring actual progress being made in the completion of the Interstate and other systems; -Prepare special Interstate data and information for use by the Administrator and other officials at congressional hearings and conferences;

-Maintain statistical operating records and utilize these records in the preparation of required annual reports and in analytical studies; and

-Prepare, compile, and analyze data on fatal accidents occurring on the Federal-aid Highway System and other highway systems;

FARE Reporting System.-Section 15(a) of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 required the Secretary of Transportation to accumulate public mass transportation financial and operating information by uniform categories and a uniform system of accounts and records. Requirements for these systems were published in Federal Register (Vol. 42, No. 13, Wednesday, January 1977). Mandatory reporting will begin July 1978.

Under the FARE system, transit system operators report on an annual basis the following categories of information: (1) financial; (2) revenues classified by source; (3) expenses classified by type of expense (e.g., labor, materials) and activity (e.g., vehicle operations, maintenance, general and administrative); (4) assets, liabilities and capital; (5) facilities and equipment; (6) employment, earnings, and hours; (7) maintenance, performance, and fuel consumption; (8) safety; (9) service supplied and vehicle utilization; and (10) passenger utilization.

The uniform reporting system will enable the Federal Government to monitor the performance, efficiency, and level of service of transportation systems throughout the Nation, and to assess the effectiveness of UMTA programs and the progress made toward the achievement of Federal policy goals.

As required under Section 15(a), the reporting system is also designed "to assist in meeting the needs of individual public mass transportation systems, Federal, State, and local governments, and the public...." It is anticipated that this single uniform system will be used by virtually all mass transit operators in reporting to all levels of government and to the public. This will considerably enhance the analytical usefulness of mass transit data at all user levels.

Interstate Statistical Program.-The ICC collects transportation information from all carriers of passengers and commodities subject to the Interstate Commerce Act (rail carriers, motor carriers, water carriers, pipelines, freight forwarders, and private owners of vehicles engaged in interstate commerce). The following categories of information are collected on a quarterly and/or annual basis: (1) financial (revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities, capital); (2) facilities and equipment; (3) employment, earnings, hours, etc.; (4) passenger movement; (5) commodity movement; and (6) safety and security (freight loss, damage claims, theft, etc).

As with the FARE reporting System, carriers are required to collect and report information according to a uniform system of accounts and records.

The information collected under the interstate statistical program is, of course, vital to the evaluation of the financial and operating performance of regulated interstate carriers. As will be discussed in a later section, similar information is needed for nonregulated carriers.

Aviation Statistics Program.-The combination of statistics collected by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Civil Aeronautics Board generally covers domestic and international aviation activities and is perhaps more comprehensive than the other multicategory programs. The FAA data cover aviation facilities and activities. The CAB data cover airline activities. In the case of FAA and CAB data, it is more convenient to provide detailed descriptions of the individual aviation statistics programs under the various program categories.

Person Movement

The National Travel Survey.-This survey yields regional passenger transportation patterns and their

relationship to socioeconomic and geographic factors. The most recent survey was based on a mail survey of a multistage probability sample of approximately 24,000 households (for 1972). Data obtained for each trip included (1) origin and major destination of the trip, (2) month the trip ended, (3) type of transport used, (4) the major reason for the trip, (5) who in the household took the trip, and (6) trip duration.

Nationwide Personal Transportation Study.-The Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey is a home interview survey designed to obtain up-to-date information on national patterns of travel. Earlier surveys, limited primarily to automobile and truck travel, were conducted in a number of States between 1930-1940 and more recently between 1951-1959. In April 1961, a national survey was conducted to estimate characteristics of travel and ownership and use of automobiles. In this national survey, family income data were available which could be related to travel patterns. Data for the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey were collected in 1969-1970 by the Bureau of the Census for the Federal Highway Administration. This survey was merged with the 1977 National Travel Survey to accomplish a more sufficient person movement survey covering all domestic person trips.

Journey-to-Work Supplement to the Annual Housing Survey.-The Annual Housing Survey (AHS) is conducted by the Census Bureau for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in response to a need for frequent and up-to-date data on U.S. housing, considered a prime indicator of the Nation's economic health. Under DOT sponsorship, a supplement was added to the questionnaire to collect information on the households' journey-to-work trips. The AHS consists of both a national sample of 76,000 households and an urban sample of Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA's). The sample of 60 SMSA's is divided into panels of 20 SMSA's each, with one panel surveyed every 3 years on a rotating basis.

The pertinent socioeconomic data gathered in the survey include household income, household size, age, race and sex of household head; type of structure and property value; availability of telephone; and availability of garage, and so forth. The journey-towork supplement includes the following data: travel mode, car occupancy, destination, trip time and distance, change of mode and mode satisfaction.

Rail Passenger Data.-In fiscal year 1976 the Federal Railroad Administration, in cooperation with the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK), expanded the rail passenger data col

lection system in the Northeast Corridor to include all AMTRAK trains operating nationwide. This project which was jointly funded with AMTRAK provided a 100% rail passenger ridership count through the use of a combination of automated data collection systems implemented on the trains.

Ten Percent Airline Passenger Ticket Sample.This is a recurrent origin-destination survey of airline passenger traffic on U.S. certificated route air carriers. The statistics are collected on the basis of a continuous 10-percent sample of airline passenger tickets. It is designed to obtain passenger travel patterns and volumes in terms of city of air origin, city of air destination, and passenger routing (carriers and connecting points). Data are collected and tabulated quarterly, with moving 12-month totals. Domestic data are published quarterly. Additional and more detailed domestic data and international/territorial data are available on microfilm and on computer tapes.

International Airlines Passenger Data.-The International Airlines Passenger Data project supports U.S. carrier passenger origin-destination data involving foreign flights by providing the only data that includes details on the foreign flag carriers.

Data on the entry/exit of citizens and non-citizens through U.S. ports and air-terminals are recorded on Immigration and Naturalization Service's Form I-92. The data includes carrier and flight number, date, number of U.S. citizens and aliens, city and country names, transport class and type.

Commodity Movement

The Commodity Transportation Survey.-This survey collects information on the physical and geographic distribution of commodities shipped by the manufacturing sector of the national economy. The information is obtained by a sampling of bills-oflading (or other shipping records) using a probability sample of manufacturing plants. By-product or special studies resulting from this survey include a study of the domestic movement of exports, a survey of small plant activity (including plants with 10 to 19 employees), and a special study of the printing and publishing industry.

The data collected include specific facts about the commodity: origin, destination, commodity code, weight, means of transport, and the production area of the surveyed plant.

Nationwide Truck Commodity Flow Study.-This survey was conducted in 1972 in each of the 50 States and was designed as a sample survey to measure the movement of specific commodities by truck