Calls upon the Department of Transportation and its Bureau of Transportation Statistics to take the lead in coordinating freight data collection in the US. This work focuses on increasing the linkages between sources of data and filling data gaps to develop a source of timely and reliable data on freight flows. A national framework is needed.

At head of title: National Cooperative Freight Research Program.

TRB's National Freight Cooperative Research Program (NCFRP) Report 9: Guidance for Developing a Freight Transportation Data Architecture explores the requirements and specifications for a national freight data architecture to link myriad existing data sets, identifies the value and challenges of the potential architecture, and highlights institutional strategies to develop and maintain the architecture. The report also includes an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a wide range of data sources; provides information on the development of a national freight data architecture definition that is scalable at the national, state, regional, and local levels; and offers readers a better understanding of the challenges that might block the implementation of a national freight data architecture as well as candidate strategies for developing, adopting, and maintaining it--

Federal planning legislation and regulations now mandate that state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations consider the needs of freight when planning and programming transportation investments. While there are standard techniques used to forecast the movement of people, less attention has been paid to forecasting freight movements, and there are consequently fewer standardized techniques that state and local agencies can adapt to their local situation. This Toolkit is designed to provide transportation planners with the information they need to prepare forecasts of freight transportation by highlighting techniques successfully developed by state agencies across the country.

TRB Special Report 277 - Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement recommends a series of actions the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) should take to render its flagship surveys -- the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) and the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) -- more effective in meeting the needs of a broad spectrum of data users. The report also recommends approaches BTS and its survey partners should adopt to develop more effective survey methods and address institutional issues affecting survey stability and quality. Report Summary published in the October-September 2004 issue of the TR News.

"TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 22: Freight Data Cost Elements identifies the specific types of direct freight transportation cost data elements required for public investment, policy, and regulatory decisionmaking. The report also describes and assesses different strategies for identifying and obtaining the needed cost data elements"--Publisher's description.

"TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 35: Implementing the Freight Transportation Data Architecture: Data Element Dictionary provides the findings of the research effort to develop a freight data dictionary for organizing the myriad freight data elements currently in use. A product of this research effort is a web-based freight data element dictionary hosted by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). The project web page includes a link to supporting appendices not printed with the report." --