Notice2026-10815
Request for Information: Shaping the Future of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
June 1, 2026
Issuing agencies
Transportation DepartmentTransportation Statistics Bureau
Abstract
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) seeks public input to evaluate the utility of its product portfolio, identify critical data gaps in the national transportation picture, and improve the user experience for all stakeholders. As the transportation landscape evolves with new technologies and supply chain shifts, BTS is committed to ensuring its resources remain relevant and accessible. Feedback received through this Request for Information (RFI) will help guide the strategic alignment of BTS's product portfolio with the technical and analytical requirements of the public.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 91 Issue 104 (Monday, June 1, 2026)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 104 (Monday, June 1, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 32508-32510]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2026-10815]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
[DOT-OST-2026-1387]
Request for Information: Shaping the Future of the Bureau of
Transportation Statistics
AGENCY: Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R), U.S.
Department of Transportation (DOT).
ACTION: Notice; request for information (RFI).
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SUMMARY: The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) seeks public
input to evaluate the utility of its product portfolio, identify
critical data gaps in the national transportation picture, and improve
the user experience for all stakeholders. As the transportation
landscape evolves with new technologies and supply chain shifts, BTS is
committed to ensuring its resources remain relevant and accessible.
Feedback received through this Request for Information (RFI) will help
guide the strategic alignment of BTS's product portfolio with the
technical and analytical requirements of the public.
DATES: Written comments and information are requested on or before
Thursday, July 2, 2026.
Informational Webinar: BTS will host an informational webinar.
Further details regarding registration and public participation are
provided in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by DOT Docket ID Number
DOT-OST-2026-1387 by any of the following methods:
<bullet> Federal eRulemaking Portal: <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">http://www.regulations.gov</a>.
Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
<bullet> Mail/Hand-Delivery/Courier: Docket Management Facility;
U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W58-
213, Washington, DC 20590. If you would like to know that your comments
reached the facility, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard
or envelope.
Note: We recommend that you include your name and a mailing
address, an email address, or a telephone number in the body of your
document so that we can contact you if we have questions regarding
your submission. If you submit your inputs by mail or hand-delivery,
they must be submitted in an unbound format, no larger than 8 \1/2\
by 11 inches, single-sided, suitable for copying and electronic
filing. All submissions received should include the agency name and
docket number.
BTS notes that this RFI is issued solely for information and
planning purposes. While responses to this RFI do not bind BTS to any
further actions related to the response, all submissions will be made
publicly available on <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a>.
Confidential Business Information: Confidential Business
Information (CBI) is commercial or financial information that is both
customarily and actually treated as private by its owner. Under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. 552), CBI is exempt from
public disclosure. If your comments to this RFI contain commercial or
financial information that is customarily treated as private and that
you actually treat as private, it is important that you clearly
designate the submitted comments as CBI and submit the information
directly to the person identified in the section titled FOR FURTHER
INFORMATION CONTACT below and take the following steps: (1) Mark each
page of the submission containing CBI as ``Confidential''; (2) send,
along with the original submission, a second copy of with the CBI
removed or redacted; and (3) explain why the information you are
submitting is CBI. Unless you are notified otherwise, BTS will treat
such marked submissions as confidential under the FOIA, and they will
not be placed in the public docket of this RFI. Any comment submissions
received that are not specifically designated as CBI will be placed in
the public docket.
Privacy Act: Anyone can search the electronic form of all comments
received into any of our dockets by the name of the individual
submitting the comment (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf
of an association, business, labor union, etc.). For information on
DOT's compliance with the Privacy Act, please visit <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/privacy">https://www.transportation.gov/privacy</a>.
Electronic Access and Filing: As required by 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4),
this document, and all comments may be viewed online through the
Federal eRulemaking portal at <a href="http://www.regulations.gov">www.regulations.gov</a>. An electronic copy
of this document may also be downloaded by accessing the Office of the
Federal Register's home page at: <a href="http://www.federalregister.gov">www.federalregister.gov</a>.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Edward Strocko, U.S. Department of
Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 1200 New Jersey
Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20590. Telephone: (202) 366-3282. Email:
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#3c7e686f7349484e595d5f547c585348125b534a"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="a4e6f0f7ebd1d0d6c1c5c7cce4c0cbd08ac3cbd2">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Bureau of Transportation Statistics
(BTS), part of the Department of Transportation (DOT), is recognized by
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as one of 16 recognized
statistical agencies and units (RSAUs) that are part of the Federal
statistical system. The Federal statistical system collects and
transforms data into useful, objective information and makes it readily
available to data users, while protecting the responses of individual
data providers. Federal, State, local, territorial, and Tribal
governments; businesses; and the public all trust this information to
be credible and reliable and use it to make informed decisions. RSAUs
are organizational units of the Executive Branch whose activities are
predominantly the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of
information for statistical purposes, covering topics such as the
economy, workforce, energy, agriculture, foreign trade, education,
housing, crime, transportation, and health.
BTS is the preeminent source of statistics on commercial aviation,
multimodal freight activity, and transportation economics, and provides
context to decision makers and the public for understanding statistics
on transportation. BTS assures the credibility of its products and
services through rigorous analysis and transparent data quality. BTS
promotes innovative methods of data collection, analysis,
visualization, and dissemination to improve operational efficiency, to
examine emerging topics, and to create relevant and timely information
products that foster understanding of transportation and its
transformational role in society. The Bureau's National Transportation
Library (NTL) is the permanent, publicly accessible home for research
publications from throughout the transportation community; the gateway
to all DOT data; and the help line for the Congress, researchers, and
the public for information about transportation.
[[Page 32509]]
In the years ahead, BTS will be successful if it continues to be
recognized for delivering robust, credible, widely used products
covering the subjects identified in its mandates and in departmental
goals. BTS products will be successful if they continue to be
recognized as timely, relevant, definitive, and objective. BTS will
continue to be innovative in its work if it tackles significant
intellectual challenges with creative and effective responses.
Ultimately, BTS is a success when its products are useful and used
throughout the nation.
Request for Information
BTS is always seeking ways to better serve the transportation
community and public with statistical information, data, and analysis
tools. As part of our ongoing efforts to modernize, BTS is reviewing
our current practices and strategies to:
<bullet> 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;
<bullet> Adopt new data sources and new analytical methods for more
timely, less expensive, and more responsive information products;
<bullet> Expand our emphasis areas from our traditional strengths
in freight, aviation, and economics to other aspects of transportation;
and
<bullet> Continue to meet our mandates and maximize efficiency in
delivery of our current product portfolio, including benchmarks that
establish the transportation universe for subject-specific measures and
provide a foundation for timely transportation indicators.
To help shape our modernization efforts, BTS specifically invites
input from data scientists, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning experts, statisticians, and economists who actively use and
analyze datasets provided by BTS, in addition to members of the public.
List of Questions for Commenters
BTS invites responses to any of the questions listed below.
Respondents are not required to answer every question. We encourage
respondents to provide responses based on specific expertise,
experience, or interest. Responses may be abstract and visionary, or
highly concrete and technical, depending on what the respondent
believes will be most helpful to BTS.
Product Portfolio Alignment: Evaluating the alignment of the BTS
product suite with public needs.
1. Portfolio Utility: How are BTS data and statistical resources
currently used, and how would improved guidance (such as technical
documentation or video tutorials) provide more value from the existing
product portfolio?
2. Future Capabilities: How would the addition of new data topics
(such as supply chain resiliency or automated technologies) change how
public or private entities or members of the public plan for the
future, and how can BTS design these new products to be useful
immediately?
Identifying Data Gaps: Identifying gaps in the national
transportation picture.
3. Core Data Requirements: How should BTS amend the transportation
data it collects to meet the data and statistical needs of government
and industry decision makers?
4. Analytical Outputs: What actions can BTS take with its
statistical products to make them more useful for transportation
planning, policy making, operations, research, and analysis?
5. Emerging Trends: How do current limits in transportation data
affect tasks such as conducting reliable analyses, setting clear
decision points, developing accurate talking points, or producing
summary statistics, especially with respect to emerging technologies or
shifting supply chain patterns?
6. Granularity: How would the inclusion of more specific geographic
or demographic cross-sections in BTS products help meet analytical
needs?
Data Utility & Application: Understanding the real-world impact of
BTS products.
7. Criticality & Use Case: How are BTS datasets currently used, and
how has this data informed decision-making?
8. Evolving Requirements: Have there been situations where a BTS
product was insufficient, and how were other sources used to supplement
that information?
9. Compatibility: Is it easier to ingest and integrate BTS data by
certain modernized delivery methods (such as using Application
Programming Interfaces (API) endpoints, machine-readable metadata, or
standardized database schemas) compared to traditional file-transfer
methods?
Data Architecture & Technical Integration: Modernizing how data is
delivered and consumed.
10. Modern Analytic Integration: As the public increasingly
utilizes advanced modern data analytic tools (such as Python, R, and
AI/Large Language Models) how should BTS change, format, or improve its
data offerings to seamlessly integrate with these technologies?
11. Delivery Mechanisms: Currently, BTS hosts and supplies data
through mechanisms such as the TranStats database, the National
Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD), static downloadable files (e.g.,
Excel), and selected APIs. Are other methods, formats, or delivery
mechanisms more useful (e.g., expanded raw Comma-Separated Values (CSV)
availability, modernized RESTful APIs,\1\ cloud-hosted data lakes,
etc.)?
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\1\ Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs are a
standardized type of web service that allows different software
applications to communicate and exchange data automatically.
``RESTful'' refers to systems that follow this architecture to
ensure data is delivered in a lightweight, scalable, and machine-
readable format.
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User Experience (UX) & Discovery: Optimizing the experience for
data seekers.
12. Search & Navigation: How are searches currently conducted on
the BTS website, and do any technical difficulties or website
navigation issues impede searches for information?
13. Consumption Preferences: Is it easier to access BTS information
by certain methods (e.g., downloading raw data for independent
analysis, using dashboards, reading analytical reports, etc.)?
Strategic Future & Feedback Loop: Aligning BTS resources with long-
term industry challenges.
14. Outlook: How would having high-quality, long-term data help to
resolve the biggest transportation challenges over the next 3 to 5
years?
15. Ongoing Engagement: What are the best methods to get news or
technical updates about changes to BTS data and products (e.g.,
technical webinars, social media, a monthly newsletter, etc.) to ensure
that the updates are timely?
16. Challenges & Opportunities: What additional recommendations,
challenges, or opportunities related to the BTS mission should be
considered that have not been addressed in the previous sections of
this RFI?
Informational Webinar
To assist the public in responding to this RFI, BTS will host an
informational webinar on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. During this session,
BTS will provide an overview of the questions included in this notice
and answer procedural questions regarding the submission of comments.
Webinar Details
<bullet> Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2026
<bullet> Time: 1:00-2:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)
<bullet> Registration: Registration is required and available on a
first-come,
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first-served basis at <a href="https://usdot.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_oRQ-w4hVTTyY_TprDYzWDA">https://usdot.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_oRQ-w4hVTTyY_TprDYzWDA</a>.
Public Participation: This session is open to the public; however,
registration is required and available on a first-come, first-served
basis. This webinar is intended for a broad range of attendees,
including data users, industry stakeholders, and members of the public
interested in helping BTS shape a more modern and responsive national
transportation data landscape.
Accommodations: The U.S. Department of Transportation is committed
to providing equal access to this meeting for all participants. If you
need alternative formats or services because of a disability, such as
sign language, interpretation, or other ancillary aids, please contact
the person listed in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section at
least five business days prior to the event.
Post-Comment Period Engagement
Following the close of the comment period for this Request for
Information, BTS will review all submissions to identify common themes.
BTS intends to publish a summary of these themes and host a follow-up
briefing to share how this feedback will guide its future work and
initiatives.
Issued in Washington, DC, on May 27, 2026.
Edward Strocko,
Acting Director, Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
[FR Doc. 2026-10815 Filed 5-29-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-9X-P
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