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1 Timely, comprehensive, and high-quality data on freight shipments, flows, and services can improve decision making of public infrastructure operators and planners as well as private sector carriers and shippers. The private sector is the primary producer of freight data and the public sector is the key consumer. Sharing of freight data between the private and public sectors has not occurred to the extent that practitioners had hoped. Reasons for this largely center on private sector proprietary concerns with sharing their data, as well as with the public sectorâs nescience to fully appreciate and adjust their data goals and needs to these concerns. The transportation community and TRB in particular have been working to improve freight data availability to users. As an outgrowth of various TRB and FHWA workshops and research studies, TRB initiated NCFRP 31, a project that involved the devel- opment and refinement of guidelines for data sharing. The NCFRP 31 project reviewed past and current efforts in freight transportation to share data and looked in detail at selected data sharing projects. This project covered freight data sharing activities in North America, as well as outside the United States and Canada, and involved land as well as waterways projects. The project included a workshop with private and public sector participants to help refine a series of barriers to data sharing and motiva- tors and best practices that have been used to overcome such barriers. NCFRP Report 25 prepared in this project is designed for use by data sharing partners both as a reference manual for setting up, operating, and enhancing freight data partnerships and also as a procedural manual to aid in developing, negotiating, and formalizing data sharing agreements. The principal audience is potential public sector practitioners (and their con- sultants and advisors). The guidebook defines 28 guidelines based on identified barriers to effective freight data sharing and measures that have been taken to overcome the barriers. The guidelines deal with freight data from private sources, usually individual trucking com- panies, railroads, barge lines or private terminal operators. The guidelines should help this public sector audience establish new data sharing projects with the private sector and avoid the pitfalls that past projects have experienced. The guidelines in this guidebook include examples of how data has been successfully shared and protected. In Chapter 2, barriers and motivators to successful data sharing are described, with the inclusion of examples from the research. Chapter 3 describes the 28 guide- lines in more detail with tables to assist the reader. Most guidelines have one or two examples included of projects that successfully did what the guideline describes. After the guideline section, Chapter 4 describes two more detailed project examples that show how a number of the guidelines are applied. Appendix A contains a table that lists the 32 projects studied in the research. Appendices B and C include sample nondisclosure agreements. S U M M A R Y Freight Data Sharing Guidebook
