TRANSPORTATION

Review of data accessibility by public and non-DOT staff
Bureau of Transportation Statistics

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) is the single-source agency for the Federal Government in the broad field of transportation data and information. The BTS operates as a statistical agency that collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential statistical data to both the American public, and the USDOT decision-making community. The Office of Statistical Quality (OSQ) serves as a statistical resource to the BTS. OSQ has set two core objectives for this project. The first is to establish the relative of transparency and accessibility of its data systems. OSQ wants to assess the ability of non-DOT Federal staff and members of the general public to learn of the existence of these systems, understand the type of data maintained in the systems, and, as needed, draw data from the systems.

Econometrica’s assessment is based on a thorough review of hard copy and electronic documentation currently available to non-DOT Federal employees and the general public. In the review process the Econometrica project team has employed a template developed by OSQ staff that enables the Econometrica staff to organize data collected during the review into five subheadings: Background, Frames and Sampling (where applicable), Data Collection, Data Preparation, and Data Dissemination. The second objective of the project is to obtain data necessary for the Data Quality Template not available from the public sources. Data for this component of the study are being obtained from interviews with DOT staff responsible for the design and maintenance of the data systems.