How We Travel A Sustainable National Program for Travel Data (2011) / Chapter Skim
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2 Overview of Current Travel Data Programs and Gaps
2 Overview of Current Travel Data Programs and Gaps
Pages 21-44
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Elements of a Comprehensive Data Program Data programs are typically built around a core set of data collection activities, including surveys, data drawn from administrative records, and/or direct data sources (e.g., road sensors)
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Overview of Current Travel Data Programs Responsibility for Travel Data Collection Travel data are collected by various government agencies and the private sector. The most comprehensive sources of travel data -- the flagship multimodal National Household Travel Survey (NHTS)
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TABLE 2-1 Responsibility for Major Travel Data Programs States, MPOs, and Data Provider and Survey U.S. DOT Other Federal Agency Other Local Public Agencies Private Sector Multimodal NHTS With state and MPO FHWA funding support JTW Census Bureau CFS BTS With Census Bureau North American Transborder With data purchased BTS/FHWA Freight Data from the Census Bureau TrANSeArCH IHS Global Insight D. K. Shifflet & Associates D. K. Shifflet & Associates Survey System Survey of International OTTI, DOC Air Travelers Modal HPMS States collect and FHWA report data NTD Transit properties collect FTA and report data rail Carload Waybill Sample railroads collect and report data FrA/STB to STB; STB produces public-use sample Air Carrier Traffic Statistics Certificated air carriers collect BTS and report data Waterborne Commerce Vessel operators report to USACe USACe of the U.S.
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.1 The new agency also was expected to work with the operating administrations of U.S. DOT, which had their own modal data programs, to help coordinate, harmonize, and modernize data collection activities.
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MPOs in large metropolitan areas also conduct travel surveys periodically, primarily to provide detailed data with which to calibrate and update regional travel demand models. Private firms also collect travel data for their own uses or to sell to other private and public users for forecasting, planning, and operational purposes.
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26 How We Travel: A Sustainable National Program for Travel Data TABLE 2-2 Characteristics of Selected Travel Data Programs and Data Collection Activities Program and Data Cost and Staff Collection Activity Category Support (FTEs) Frequency Data Programs for Monitoring Passenger Travel every 5–8 years • 24 million ($21 mil- $ Passenger, National Household lion, states and MPOs; all modes Travel Survey $3 million, FHWA)
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Overview of Current Travel Data Programs and Gaps 27 Level of Geographic Data Provider Content of Data Provided Specificity Status National, limited coverage Uneven • ravel characteristics T FHWA of states and some large (trip frequency, length, metropolitan areas time, and mode) • Household and personal data (household com position, income, age, work characteristics)
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Frequency Annual on the • No cost or staff D. K. Shifflet & Associates Passenger, basis of monthly support data avail Survey System all modes panel surveys able; database is sold by D. K. Shifflet & Associates Data Programs for Monitoring Freight Movement every 5 years • $24.5 million Commodity Flow Survey Freight, (80% BTS, 20% CB) all modes + $1.8 million (BTS additional analysis)
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Level of Geographic Data Provider Content of Data Provided Specificity Status Stable region, city, tourist • raveler volume to loca T D. K. Shifflet & destination tion by number of trips, Associates number of travelers, length of stays • ode of transportation M • urpose of stay and P travel activities • isitor spending and V related demographic data Stable National, state, and Origin–destination, BTS/CB for now selected large metro value, weight, mode politan areas within of transport, distance states transported, commodity type and ton-miles of commodities shipped for domestic freight Stable Port of entry or exit, ex Commodity type, mode BTS through contract cept for commodity data of transportation with the CB because of disclosure (rail, truck, pipeline, air, limitations; state of and water) , and port origin for exports and of entry/exit for U.S. state of destination for exports to and imports imports from Canada and Mexico Stable economic areas, with Origin and destinarailroads terminating ≥4,500 carloads per confidentiality restrictions tion points, types of commodities shipped, year for 3 years in a number of cars, tons, row must report to revenue, length of haul STB; public-use file is developed by STB–FrA contractor Stable State and region for • rigin and destination O Vessel operators of domestic commerce; by tons by commodity record report to U.S. ports code for domestic USACe for domestic commerce, with con commerce; PIerS fidentiality restrictions database for foreign • mports, exports, I commerce (pur and in-transit traffic chased by USACe)
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Frequency Annual • No cost or staff sup TrANSeArCH Freight, port data available; all modes database is sold by IHS Global Insight Monthly • No cost or staff sup PIerS Freight, port data available waterborne Data Programs for Monitoring Both Passenger Travel and Freight Movement Monthly • 300,000 annual $ Air Carrier Traffic Statistics Passenger and contractor cost freight, air • 0.5 BTS FTe Annual • 3,600 hours 9 Highway Performance Passenger (estimate of state data Monitoring System and freight, collection burden; highways no monetary cost provided, but states generally use SP&r or state funds for data collection) ; $400,000 FHWA annual cost for sys tem development and support • 5 FTes FHWA Note: AASHTO = American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials; ACS = American Community Survey; BTS = Bureau of Transportation Statistics; CB = Census Bureau; CTPP = Census Transportation Planning Products; DOC = Department of Commerce; DOT = department of transportation; FHWA = Federal Highway Administration; FrA = Federal railroad Administration; FTA = Federal Transit Administration; FTe = full-time equivalent; JTW = Journey to Work; MPO = metropolitan planning organization; OTTI = Office of Travel & Tourism; PIerS = Port Import export reporting Service; SP&r = State Planning and research; STB = Surface Transportation Board; USACe = U.S. Army Corps of engineers.
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Overview of Current Travel Data Programs and Gaps 31 Level of Geographic Data Provider Content of Data Provided Specificity Status Stable National, state, economic • Freight flows by county IHS Global Insight for now Area, county, and some origin and destination, zip codes four-digit commodity, and transport mode Stable U.S. ports • oreign imports and F UBM Global Trade exports -- tons, commodity type, and value Stable Airports, domestic and • Point of origin, destina reports from cer international travel (i.e., tion, airline, class of tificated air carriers in between the United service, and fare for air scheduled domestic States and a foreign passengers passenger service to point) ; the latter are • umber of passengers N BTS (Office of Airline restricted for 6 months and weight of cargo Information)
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From page 32... ...
Furthermore, the estimates, for the most part, do not include the costs of travel data collected at the state and local levels, which can be significant.4 The annual costs for household travel data collection by large MPOs, for example, have been projected at more than $200 million.5 Nevertheless, even if these estimates were increased by an order of magnitude, current spending on travel data programs would still represent a tiny fraction of total expenditures for transportation. In 2007, for example, federal, state, and local public expenditures on transportation totaled $221.7 billion,6 and U.S.
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Sustained funding appears to be easier to secure when a data program is required by statute, which is the case for many of the modal databases (e.g., the National Transit Database [NTD] , the rail Carload Waybill Sample, the Waterborne Commerce Statistics)
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Major Gaps in Current Travel Data Programs This section reviews the gaps in current travel data content; shortfalls in the areas of data collection methods are examined in Chapter 3. Gaps in both passenger and freight travel data have been enumerated in at least two TRB special reports (TRB 2003a,b)
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.12 With only six MPOs paying for larger sample sizes, moreover, reliable household data at the metropolitan area level are very limited. Most larger MPOs conduct their own travel surveys periodically, as noted previously, but these surveys are costly and conducted infrequently, typically at 10-year or longer intervals, and are not sufficiently 11.
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Freight Travel Data In contrast to passenger travel data, freight travel data have critical gaps that can be filled only with a reorientation in approach (see Table 2-3)
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.14 Few MPOs conduct local freight surveys, and without these data, MPOs and local governments lack important information for modeling freight movements and planning freight corridor improvements or other infrastructure investments to support major freight facilities (e.g., improvements to port access) (Skinner 2009)
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The exceptions are on-time performance statistics for passenger air travel and selected performance data on heavy-duty vehicle freight travel 16. The FHWA–American Transportation Research Institute Freight Performance Measurement (FPM)
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, but also for more basic purposes, such as designing travel surveys and other data collection activities. For example, one of the difficulties of using the establishment-based CFS to obtain freight travel data is a change in the underlying logistics patterns and supply chain orientation that has rendered shipper-based surveys on freight movements increasingly less reliable.
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Similarly, data on land use patterns, particularly higher-density development, mixing of land uses, and high-quality transit service -- characteristics that are thought to encourage reductions in automo bile use and more livable communities -- are seldom linked to data on personal travel to provide the information needed to probe these relationships.20 • Geographic specificity -- Geocoding of travel data is important for linking separate data sets to understand the relationships between travel and contextual factors and to construct models for policy evaluation.21 Geocoding also supports map-based analysis and display of data, an important way to visualize and understand travel patterns. At the national level, the Freight Analysis Framework has been instrumental in visualizing freight flows and identifying major interstate freight cor ridors as a first step in examining capacity issues.
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For both surveys, analysis of travel and trip-making trends over time, including the stability of travel patterns, could help deter mine how often these data should be collected. Findings This chapter and the related Appendix E examine current major travel data programs -- who administers them; what data are collected and at what level of geographic specificity; how frequently key surveys or other data collection activities are conducted; and, for many data sources, at what cost and with what level of staff support.
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Briefing presented to the Committee on Strategies for Improved Passenger and Freight Travel Data, Washington, D.C., Dec.
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2003a. Special Report 276: A Concept for a National Freight Data Program.
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