Development of an NTD Tool for Vanpool Services

摘要

The National Transit Database has requirements on how providers of vanpool services collect and report their data on service consumed and service provided. Current practices, however, often deviate from these requirements. Such deviations lead to poor data for policy decision-making and can result in less funding from the Urbanized Area Formula Grant Program. This report describes a spreadsheet template and related guidance to help providers of vanpool services better meet the requirements of the National Transit Database. The spreadsheet template requires four types of input data: general information, route data, sample data, and daily activity data and processes the input data into summary data items for three forms of the National Transit Database: M-20, S-10, and FFA-10. The report describes the spreadsheet template and how it should be used and provides brief guidance on collecting data on service consumed and detailed guidance on collecting data on service provided, including actual vehicle revenue miles and actual vehicle revenue hours. Once implemented, the spreadsheet template and related guidance are expected to save administrative costs of data processing and reporting, increase the quality of data on service provided and service consumed reported to the National Transit Database, and bring more federal funds as a result of more providers of vanpool services reporting their data to the National Transit Database that meet its requirements.