[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 192 (Tuesday, October 5, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 61553-61556]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-24990]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Transit Administration
[Docket No FTA-2010-0027]
National Transit Database: Amendments to the Urbanized Area
Annual Reporting Manual and to the Safety and Security Reporting Manual
AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration (FTA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice of Proposed Amendments to the 2011 National Transit
Database Urbanized Area Annual Reporting Manual and Announcement of
Immediate Suspension of Collecting Security Data on the S&S-50 Form in
the Safety and Security Module
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SUMMARY: This notice provides interested parties with the opportunity
to comment on changes to the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA)
National Transit Database (NTD) reporting requirements, including
amendments to the 2011 Urbanized Area Annual Reporting Manual (Annual
Manual). Pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 5335, FTA requires recipients or
beneficiaries of FTA Urbanized Area Formula Grants to provide an annual
report to the Secretary of Transportation via the NTD reporting system
according to a uniform system of accounts (USOA). Other transit systems
in urbanized areas report to the NTD under these requirements on a
voluntary basis for purposes of including data from their NTD reports
in the apportionment of Urbanized Area Formula Grants. In an ongoing
effort to improve the NTD reporting system and be responsive to the
needs of the transit systems reporting to the NTD, FTA annually refines
and clarifies the reporting requirements through revisions to the
Annual Manual. Additionally, FTA announces that it is immediately
suspending data collection of personal security incidents on the S&S-50
Form in the Safety & Security Module.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before December 6, 2010. FTA
will consider late filed comments to the extent practicable.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments [identified by DOT Docket ID Number
FTA-2010-0027] at the Federal eRulemaking Portal at: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Fax: 202-493-2251.
Mail: Docket Management Facility: U.S. Department of
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., West Building Ground
Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
Hand Delivery or Courier: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140,
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday
through Friday, except Federal holidays.
Instructions: When submitting comments, you must use docket number
FTA-2010-0027. This will ensure that your comment is placed in the
correct docket. If you submit comments by mail, you should submit two
copies and include the above docket number. Note that all comments
received will be posted, without change, to http://www.regulations.gov
including any personal identifying information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John D. Giorgis, NTD Program Manager,
Office of Budget and Policy, (202) 366-5430 (telephone); (202) 366-7989
(fax); or [email protected] (e-mail).
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
The National Transit Database (NTD) is the Federal Transit
Administration's (FTA's) primary database for statistics on the transit
industry. Congress established the NTD to ``help meet the needs of * *
* the public for information on which to base public transportation
service planning * * *'' (49 U.S.C. 5335). Currently, over 700 transit
providers in urbanized areas report to the NTD through an Internet-
based reporting system. Each year, performance data from these
submissions are used to apportion over $6 billion of FTA funds under
the Urbanized Area Formula (Section 5307) Grants and the Fixed Guideway
Modernization Grants Programs. These data are made available on the NTD
Web site at http://www.ntdprogram.gov for the benefit of the public,
transit systems, and all levels of government. These data are also used
in the annual National Transit Summaries and Trends report, the
biennial Conditions and Performance Report to Congress, and in meeting
FTA's obligations under the Government Performance and Results Act.
Reporting requirements are governed by a Uniform System of Accounts
(USOA) and an Annual Reporting Manual that is issued each year. Both
the USOA and the Annual Manual are available for review on the NTD
Website at http://www.ntdprogram.gov. Additionally, urbanized area
transit systems also make monthly reports to the NTD on safety and
security incidents through the NTD Safety & Security Module.
II. Proposed Changes in the 2011 Annual Manual
FTA proposes several substantive changes to the Annual Manual for
the 2011 Report Year: (1) To clarify the eligibility of vanpools to be
reported to the NTD; (2) to redefine several of the modes of
transportation service; (3) to make some definitional clarifications;
(4) to revise the reporting requirements for small transit systems; (5)
to add financial balance sheet reporting; (6) to update the procedures
for making urbanized area allocations; and (7) to establish special
procedures for handling the release of new urbanized area definitions
from the Census Bureau.
(1) Eligibility of Vanpools for the NTD
Currently, FTA requires vanpools to have a public sponsor in order
to be included in the NTD. This does not capture vanpool service being
provided as public transportation by the private sector. In other
cases, the mere existence of a public sponsor for vanpool service has
allowed some vanpools to be reported to the NTD without adequate
assurances that the vanpool is in fact public transportation.
FTA proposes to change its requirements for reporting vanpool
service to the NTD as follows: To be included in the NTD, a sponsor of
vanpool service must demonstrate: (1) That it is open to the public and
that any vans that are restricted a priori to particular employers and
which do not participate in the ride-matching service of the vanpool
are excluded from the NTD report; (2) that it actively engages in the
following activities: advertising the vanpool service to the public,
matching interested members of the public to vanpools with available
seats, and reasonable planning to increase its service (when funding is
available) to meet demand from additional riders; (3) that the service
is open to individuals with disabilities, in accordance with the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; and (4) that it has a record-
keeping system in place to collect and report fully-allocated operating
costs for the service.
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Reporting fully-allocated operating costs means that the vanpool
can report on the total cost of the service, including: (1) Any fuel,
insurance, and maintenance costs paid by vanpool participants; (2) all
advertising and promotion costs; (3) costs paid by any third-parties to
support the vanpool program; and (4) any contract administration costs
borne by the vanpool sponsor.
Finally, NTD IDs for vanpool programs will be assigned on the basis
of the entity that is sponsoring the vanpool, and is defining the
eligibility requirements for participation in the vanpool. FTA will
require all existing vanpool services in the NTD to recertify their
approval to report to the NTD based on the new criteria for the 2011
Report Year.
(2) New Modes
Almost all data reported to the NTD is reported on the basis of
modes of service, such as the commuter rail (CR) mode or the demand
response (DR) mode. Mode of operation is a useful way of organizing
transit data, as it easily facilitates the creation of National
benchmarks and performance peer-groups for systems of similar
characteristics. To facilitate this, and to recognize that modes have
changed over time, FTA proposes creating four new modes of operation:
Bus Rapid Transit (RB), Commuter Bus (CB), Streetcar Rail (SR), and
Hybrid Rail (YR). These definitions, like all NTD modes, may not
necessarily apply to other areas where definitions are established by
law, rule, or regulation.
Bus Rapid Transit (RB): This mode will be for fixed-route bus
systems that either (1) operate their entire routes predominantly on
fixed-guideways (other than on highway HOV or shoulder lanes, such as
for commuter bus service) or (2) that operate entire routes of high-
frequency service with the following elements: substantial transit
stations, traffic signal priority or pre-emption, low-floor vehicles or
level-platform boarding, and separate branding of the service. High-
frequency service is defined as 10-minute peak and 15-minute off-peak
headways for at least 14 hours of service operations per day.
Commuter Bus (CB): This mode will be for fixed-route bus systems
that are primarily connecting outlying areas with a central city
through bus service that operates with at least five miles of
continuous closed-door service. This service typically operates using
motorcoaches, and usually features peak scheduling, multiple-trip
tickets, and multiple stops in outlying areas with limited stops in the
central city.
Streetcar Rail (SR): This mode is for rail transit systems
operating entire routes predominantly on streets in mixed-traffic. This
service typically operates with single-car trains powered by overhead
catenaries and with frequent stops.
Hybrid Rail (YR): This mode is for rail transit systems primarily
operating entire routes on the National system of railroads, but not
operating with the characteristics of commuter rail. This service
typically operates light rail-type vehicles as diesel multiple-unit
trains (DMU's). These trains do not meet Federal Railroad
Administration standards, and so must operate with temporal separation
from freight rail traffic.
FTA expects that many systems reporting these new modes will make a
transition of 100% of their service from the existing Motorbus (MB) or
Light Rail (LR) modes to the new mode. For systems that will need to
split their service between an existing mode and a new mode, FTA will
grant waivers from this requirement for up to two years to accommodate
the transition.
(3) Definition Clarifications
FTA proposes reclassifying ``Aerial Tramway'' to be reported as a
``rail'' mode of operation, as this will aid data presentation in
allowing it to be included with other small rail modes, such as
Inclined Plane.
FTA also proposes combining the Monorail (MO) and Automated
Guideway (AG) modes into a single Monorail/Automated Guideway (MG)
mode. Currently, the definition of the ``Monorail'' mode only applies
to a single system in Seattle, Washington. Also, the Automated Guideway
mode currently applies to systems that are often popularly thought of
as being in the Monorail mode (e.g. the Las Vegas Monorail.) In
practice, both of these modes have similar characteristics of exclusive
guideway without using steel wheels on rails. Combining these modes
will increase data clarity for our users.
FTA also proposes clarifying the definitions used to collect miles
of rail right-of-way alignment on the Transit Way Mileage (A-20) Form.
FTA collects at-grade rail alignments on this form according to three
categories: (1) At-grade exclusive right-of-way; (2) at-grade with
cross-traffic; and (3) at-grade with mixed and cross-traffic.
Examination of past years' NTD reports has indicated that this data has
been inconsistently reported in the past. FTA proposes the following
clarifications:
At-Grade With Mixed and Cross Traffic: includes alignments where
rail vehicles and rubber-tire vehicles travel in the same lanes, and
alignments where pedestrians may freely cross the tracks at any point.
At-Grade With Cross Traffic: closed (i.e., non-mixed) rail
alignments between any two contiguous crossings that are at-grade
should be reported as At-Grade With Cross Traffic. For example,
crossing another right-of-way by using a tunnel or an elevated
structure would not constitute an at-grade crossing, and at-grade
crossings located before and after the tunnel or elevated structure
would not be contiguous. The same would be true for tunnels or elevated
structures used by the other right-of-way. Similarly, closed rail
alignments between a rail yard or maintenance facility and an at-grade
crossing should also be reported as ``at-grade with cross traffic.''
At-grade alignments between an at-grade crossing and an other-than-at-
grade crossing with another right-of-way should be reported as At-Grade
Exclusive Right-of-Way (ROW).
(4) Reporting Requirements for Small Systems
The NTD currently offers reduced reporting requirements to
recipients or beneficiaries of Section 5307 grants that only operate 9
or fewer vehicles in maximum service throughout the year. Systems
receiving this ``9 or Fewer Vehicles Waiver'' currently only need to
report their contact information and their revenue vehicle inventory to
the NTD each year. Systems receiving this waiver, however, do not
report any data on service operations (e.g., vehicle revenue miles),
nor on ridership, and thus data from these systems is not available for
use in the apportionment of Section 5307 grants (including the Small
Transit Intensive Cities (STIC) tier). As such, of the 144 transit
systems eligible for this waiver in 2009, only 98 (68%) used the
waiver. This is an even smaller percentage (14%) of the 705 systems
reporting to the NTD in 2009.
The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity
Act: A Legacy to Users (SAFETEA-LU) of 2005 established new
requirements for recipients or beneficiaries of Section 5311 grants
(Other Than Urbanized Area (Rural) Formula Grants) to report to the NTD
on their sources of revenues, vehicle revenue miles, and ridership,
among other factors. This created two unusual circumstances. First, the
NTD now collects and makes available to the public more data on rural
transit systems than on small transit systems in urbanized areas.
Second, in order to
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meet statutory reporting requirements, a small transit system that
receives funding from both the Section 5307 and Section 5311 Programs
may receive a ``9 or Fewer Vehicles Waiver'' for urbanized area
reporting, but then must also provide data to their State Department of
Transportation (State DOT) for rural reporting. These overlapping
reporting requirements have caused confusion both to transit systems
required to report to the NTD and to data users. Thus, FTA proposes to
align the requirements for transit systems receiving a ``9 or Fewer
Vehicles Waiver'' with the reporting requirements for the Rural NTD
Module. Transit systems receiving such a waiver will report directly to
the NTD Annual Module (Urbanized Area Reporting) through reporting
forms that closely mirror the RU-20 Form used for the Rural NTD. As
such, State DOTs will not be required to complete an RU-20 on behalf of
subrecipients that are already reporting directly to the urbanized area
modules of the NTD, but will instead simply complete the RU-50
Subrecipient Identification Form for these subrecipients.
In order to offset the increased burden on the public, FTA proposes
to expand this waiver to urbanized area transit systems operating 30 or
Fewer Vehicles in Maximum Service, and which do not operate any service
over fixed-guideways. This would expand eligibility for the new ``30 or
Fewer Vehicles Waiver'' to over 180 additional transit systems,
representing nearly half of the transit systems reporting to the NTD.
Thus, transit systems receiving this waiver would be required to
continue to report information on their contact information, their
service area, and their revenue vehicle inventory. Additionally, these
systems would be required to report on their sources of operating funds
applied and sources of capital funds applied (at the level of each
individual FTA program, total state funds, total local funds, and other
funds), volunteer resources, and taxi cab trips used. Furthermore,
service data would be reported by these systems as an annual total of
vehicle revenue miles, vehicle revenue hours, unlinked passenger trips,
and sponsored demand response trips. Passenger miles, however, would
not be collected--in order to exempt these systems from the burden of
sampling. Data from these systems would be used in the apportionment of
formula grants (including STIC) wherever possible, but would be
excluded from those calculations in the apportionment that rely upon
passenger mile data. Systems that wish for their passenger mile data to
benefit their local urbanized area in the apportionment must not apply
for this waiver and must instead file a full NTD report.
Additionally, to support the apportionments, systems receiving this
waiver would still be required to complete the short Federal Funding
Allocation (FFA-10) Form. Additionally, systems receiving this waiver
would now also be required to report to the Safety & Security Module,
as well as to the Monthly Module. The Monthly Module requires a monthly
report within 30 days of unlinked passenger trips, vehicle revenue
miles, vehicle revenue hours, and vehicles operated within maximum
service for the month. The Safety & Security Module requires a detailed
report within 30 days of any incident involving one or more fatalities,
one or more injuries, total property damage in excess of $25,000, or an
evacuation for life safety reasons. The Safety & Security Module also
requires a summary monthly report of minor incidents such as fires
requiring suppression, or single-person slips or falls resulting in
injuries. Most systems receiving this waiver would be able to quickly
submit their monthly report indicating that no reportable incidents
occurred.
(5) Financial Balance Sheet Reporting
In its proposed amendments to the 2009 Reporting Manual, FTA
provided notice of its intent to simplify its existing data collection
on bonds and loans. The current forms have caused a great deal of
confusion to transit systems reporting to the NTD. FTA proposed to
simplify bond and loan reporting on a separate form. However, FTA has
received comments that this proposal was inadequate because it focused
solely on one category of liabilities--bonds and loans--and also
because it provided an incomplete picture of a transit system's
financial health by not collecting any information on financial assets.
FTA believes that information on the financial health of transit
systems is very useful in fulfilling the NTD's statutory purpose of
providing ``information on which to base public transportation service
planning,'' so FTA is modifying its original proposal. As such, FTA
proposes to add the reporting of an end-of-year balance sheet for
transit systems reporting to the NTD. In order to reduce the burden to
reporters, it proposes consolidating the asset and liability classes
found in the Uniform System of Accounts (USOA) as follows, with the
number of the corresponding USOA accounts in parentheses:
For liabilities, transit systems would report their end-of-year
Long Term Debt (221), Estimated Liabilities-Long-Term Pension
Liabilities (231.01), Estimated Liabilities-Other (231.02 and 231.03),
and Other Liabilities (201-211 & 241).
For financial assets, transit systems would report their end-of-
year Cash and Receivables (101 & 102), Investments (131), Special Funds
(141), and Other Financial Assets (105, 151). The value of materials
and supplies (103), capital assets (111 & 112), and intangible assets
(121) would not be collected in order to minimize reporting. The full
Uniforms System of Accounts can be found online at http://www.ntdprogram.gov under the link for ``Reference Materials.'' FTA is
proposing to implement these categories for the 2011 Report Year and
wishes to give transit systems plenty of time to prepare for this
change through training and webinars. Nevertheless, FTA will grant data
waivers for the first year of reporting in cases where transit systems
need additional time to meet these requirements. Additionally, this
information will not be required for any transit system making use of
the 30 or fewer vehicles waiver.
(6) Revision of Rules for Urbanized Area Allocations
The NTD recognizes three basic types of geographic areas: urbanized
areas over 200,000 in population (large UZAs); urbanized areas under
200,000 in population (small UZAs); and non-urbanized areas (rural
areas.) On the FFA-10 form, transit systems reporting to the NTD are
required to allocate data on their operating statistics among each of
the one or more large UZAs, each of the one or more small UZAs, and to
rural areas (in aggregate) served by the transit system. The data to be
allocated includes vehicle revenue miles (VRM), vehicle revenue hours
(VRH), unlinked passenger trips (UPT), passenger miles traveled (PMT),
and operating expenses, as well as fixed-guideway information (if
applicable). Transit systems may make this allocation based on actual
data (if the transit system ordinarily records actual data based on
each of the geographic areas served), or the transit system may
allocate its data on the basis of the ratio of vehicle revenue miles
operated in each geographic area.
Currently, if a transit system operates transit service connecting
one or more small UZAs or rural areas to a large UZA, the NTD allows
the transit system to allocate all of that service to the large UZA on
the FFA-10 form. This is based on the concept that this service is
``serving'' the large UZA. In the past, this policy was often
beneficial to transit systems, as only large UZAs received an
[[Page 61556]]
apportionment of funds based on service data reported to the NTD. Thus,
allocation of as much service data as possible to the large UZA
resulted in the greatest potential benefits in the apportionment. Since
the passage of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient,
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), this
calculation has changed. Now, small UZAs also receive an apportionment
based on service data reported to the NTD under the Small Transit
Intensive Cities (STIC) formula.
FTA proposes to change this policy as follows: Transit systems
reporting to the NTD must allocate data on the FFA-10 to each urbanized
areas served by the transit system, and to rural areas in aggregate (if
rural areas are served by the transit system), based on a reasonable
representation of the service provided to each area. Service that
connects a small UZA or a rural area to a large UZA cannot be allocated
entirely to the large UZA. An area is considered served by transit
service if passengers can board or alight the transit service there.
Thus, service that begins in a small UZA, operates on a closed-door
basis through a rural area, and ends in a large UZA should only be
allocated to the small UZA and the large UZA--as the rural area is not
served by transit in this case. Transit systems should make this
allocation based on actual data whenever possible, but may make this
allocation based on VRM, UPT, or PMT, or some other reasonable and
consistent method that reflects the service provided.
FTA proposes to change its policy for three reasons. First, FTA
wishes to provide a more accurate representation of the distribution of
transit service among various urbanized areas and rural areas to our
data users. Secondly, the current policy does not properly allocate
transit service data to small UZAs for use in calculating the
apportionment of funds under the Small Transit Intensive Cities (STIC)
Program. Finally, transit researchers and policymakers have expressed
concern to FTA that the current policy understates the level of transit
service in rural areas. The NTD was recently expanded to collect data
from recipients of FTA's Other Than Urbanized Area Formula Grant
(Section 5311) Program. The data set produced by this collection,
however, produces an incomplete picture of transit service in rural
areas in cases where the service is provided by a transit system that
is also a recipient of Section 5307 Funds. Data produced by this new
policy will provide for a complete picture of rural transit services.
(7) Special Procedures for New Urbanized Area Definitions From the 2010
Census
It is anticipated the Census Bureau will publish new urbanized area
definitions based on the 2010 Decennial Census in Spring 2012. By the
time these definitions are published, most urbanized area transit
systems will have already submitted their 2011 Annual Module reports,
and many will have already received their closeout letter for this
year. This data, however, must be used for the FY 2013 apportionment of
formula grants, which must be conducted using the most-recently-
available urbanized area definitions from the Census Bureau. To
accomplish this, FTA proposes the following procedures for the 2011
Report Year.
Transit systems reporting to the NTD will complete a B-10
Identification Form and an FFA-10 Form as usual and submit their report
according to the usual timelines and procedures. Once the Census Bureau
publishes the new Urbanized Area definitions and maps, and once FTA
updates the NTD Online Reporting System (ORS) to incorporate these new
definitions, FTA will notify all urbanized area NTD reporters to logon
to the NTD ORS and submit a new form addenda which will ask each system
to confirm which of the new UZAs it serves (as suggested by FTA), to
allocate their service among the new UZA boundaries, and to sub-
allocate their service by State for any UZA that includes portions of
more than one State. Transit systems would not be required to resubmit
their Chief Executive Officer Certification nor their Independent
Auditor Statement for these report addenda. FTA also notes that in some
rare cases, if the Census Bureau releases revisions or corrections to
its UZA definitions that FTA may require some adjustments to the
aforementioned report addenda, in order to reflect the most-recent UZA
definitions. Again, this proposal is to support the FY 2013
apportionment of urbanized area formula grants.
III. Announcement of Suspension of Personal Security Reporting
Effective with the publication of this notice, FTA announces that
it is temporarily suspending the reporting of personal security data on
the S&S-50 Form of the Safety & Security Module. As part of its
continuous evaluation of NTD reporting requirements and respondent
reporting burden, FTA has determined that it would be prudent to
suspend this data collection at this time, pending further review of
its own data needs and the burden of this data collection on the
public. FTA will seek public comment before taking action to lift this
suspension, alter this data collection, or cancel this data collection
permanently. Transit systems reporting to the NTD should continue to
report ``Other Safety Occurrences Not Otherwise Classified'' (e.g. slip
and fall/electric shock/other) on the S&S-50 Form and on the ``Number
of Occurrences of Fire.'' All other aspects of this Form are being
suspended. Transit systems should also continue to report on the S&S-
40: Reportable Incident Form any crime-related incident that meets the
threshold criteria of one or more fatalities, one or more injuries, or
an evacuation for life-safety reasons.
Issued in Washington, DC, this 24th day of September, 2010.
Peter Rogoff,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2010-24990 Filed 10-4-10; 8:45 am]
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