The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recently provided feedback to the U.S. Department of Transportation as the agency looks to “reshape” the Bureau of Transportation Statistics or BTS for the future.
[Above image by AASHTO]
“There is no greater priority for state departments of transportation than keeping our residents and travelers safe when using our transportation networks, and reliable data is a critical tool to advance project delivery and safety goals,” AASHTO noted in a letter to USDOT.
“At a time when private sector data products abound, there is more data than ever before and many state DOTs face information overload,” the organization said. “They are most in need of data that is usable, reliable, and well documented.”
AASHTO offered several suggestions for the BTS overhaul based on the needs of state DOTs, including:
- BTS should prioritize designing products with clear data dictionaries, standard geographies, Application Program Interfaces or APIs, Geographic System Interfaces or GIS-ready formats, documented limitations, example use cases, and simple starter analyses that show how the data can inform real decisions.
- Provide more freight-related data topics and capabilities, such as data on supply chain resiliency – specifically freight resiliency, rural supply chains, and commodity information – and products that better link freight movement with other related data, such as agricultural production.
- Provide more geographic detail at the county-level and road-segment-level across BTS products, as well as multiple data download options along with ready-made data dashboards, trend tables, and pre-built measures for common state transportation planning needs.
BTS emphasized in its Federal Register notice that it will be successful if it continues to be recognized for delivering “robust, credible, widely used products” and if it tackles significant intellectual challenges with “creative and effective responses.”
The agency said it plans to use the feedback provided by stakeholders such as AASHTO to help it:
- Keep up with dramatic changes in transportation by shifting our emphasis from trends and recent conditions to more frequent, forward-looking indicators of transportation use and performance;
- Adopt new data sources and new analytical methods for more timely, less expensive, and more responsive information products;
- Expand its emphasis areas from our traditional strengths in freight, aviation, and economics to other aspects of transportation; and
- Continue to meet its mandates and maximize efficiency in delivery of its current data portfolio, including benchmarks that establish the transportation universe for subject-specific measures and provide a foundation for timely transportation indicators.
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