The report concludes that current data is inadequate to support decision making in the transportation sector.

"Each day our transportation network serves hundreds of millions of travelers and handles millions of tons of freight, yet we are not collecting the data necessary to analyze demands on the system," Joseph Schofer, chair of the committee that wrote the report and associate dean of engineering and applied science at Northwestern University, said in a statement. "To help us better manage and improve our transportation system, we need federally funded core travel data well-integrated with data collected from states, metropolitan planning organizations, transit agencies, and private-sector data providers."

The committee, comprised of representatives from TRB and the National Research Council's Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, recommended that the U.S. Department of Transportation take the lead in creating a "National Travel Data Program" despite what committee members described as the department's past failures to develop an effective program.

USDOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration and its Bureau of Transportation Statistics should carry out the design and management of the program and work cooperatively with other government agencies, private-sector data providers, and professional and nonprofit associations to organize and implement the program, the report recommends. The committee also called for a program advisory council that broadly represents travel data constituencies to provide strategic advice directly to the secretary of transportation on the design and conduct of the program and on emerging data needs.

Travel data collection activities are presently scattered throughout USDOT and other federal agencies, according to the report. The states, metropolitan planning organizations, and the private sector also collect travel data, primarily for their own uses. The most comprehensive travel data are gathered by the federal government using periodic surveys. Coverage of these surveys is incomplete, sample sizes frequently are insufficient to support meaningful analyses, and the results often are not timely, the report found. Moreover, funding for these surveys is subject to shifting political priorities, which can place them at risk for cancellation.

The report recommends that USDOT and its data partners aggressively invest in the design, testing, and deployment of new methods and technologies for data collection as well as advance the current travel data collection system by employing more consistent data definitions, stronger quality controls, better integration of data sets, and more strategic use of privately collected data. In addition, development of more common formats for state and regional travel data would enable greater integration and aggregation of these data across jurisdictions for analysis and decision making.

To ensure the collection, integration, and dissemination of these core travel data, the recommended National Travel Data Program will require sustained federal funding estimated by the committee to be between $15 million $20 million annually. Current annual federal spending on core travel data is about $6 million.

"The next reauthorization of surface transportation legislation offers the opportunity to secure the funding," Schofer said. "With billions of investment dollars at stake, the proposed modest increment in funding of $9 million to $14 million to ensure better outcomes is both necessary and prudent."

The full report, "How We Travel: A Sustainable National Program for Travel Data," and a summary are available at bit.ly/TRB-HowWeTravel. It was sponsored by TRB, RITA, the Federal Highway Administration, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials through the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.