5816 Federal Register / Vol. 81, No. 22 / Wednesday, February 3, 2016 / Notices 

www.regulations.gov/#!privacyNotice 

for the privacy notice of regulations.gov. 

Robert C. Lauby, 

Associate Administrator for Railroad Safety, 

Chief Safety Officer. 

[FR Doc. 2016–01968 Filed 2–2–16; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4910–06–P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Federal Transit Administration 

[Docket No. FTA–2016–0009] 

Notice of Request for Comments on 

Update to the Uniform System of 

Accounts (USOA) and Changes to the 

National Transit Database (NTD) 

Reporting Requirements 

AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration 

(FTA), DOT. 

ACTION: Notice; request for comments on 

updates to the USOA and changes to the 

NTD reporting requirements. 

SUMMARY: The Federal Transit 

Administration is updating the Uniform 

System of Accounts (USOA). The 

proposed updates are prompted by the 

outdated nature of the 1995 USOA. FTA 

is seeking public comment on these 

proposed changes before releasing the 

updated USOA and implementing the 

associated changes to 49 U.S.C. 5335, 

National Transit Database. 

DATES: Comments must be received by 

April 4, 2016. Any comments filed after 

this deadline will be considered to the 

extent practicable. 

ADDRESSES: Please submit your 

comments by only one of the following 

methods, identifying your submission 

by Docket Number FTA–2016–0009 

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: 

Submit electronic comments and other 

data to http://www.regulations.gov. 

• U.S. Mail: Send comments to 

Docket Operations; U.S. Department of 

Transportation, 1200 New Jersey 

Avenue SE., West Building Room W12– 

140, Washington, DC 20590–0001. 

• Hand Delivery or Courier: Take 

comments to Docket Operations in 

Room W12–140 of the West Building, 

Ground Floor, at 1200 New Jersey 

Avenue SE., Washington, DC, between 

9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday 

through Friday, except Federal holidays. 

• Fax: Fax comments to Docket 

Operations, U.S. Department of 

Transportation, at (202) 493–2251. 

Instructions: You must include the 

agency name (Federal Transit 

Administration) and Docket Number 

(FTA–2016–0009) for this notice, at the 

beginning of your comments. If sent by 

mail, submit two copies of your 

comments. Due to security procedures 

in effect since October 2001, mail 

received through the U.S. Postal Service 

may be subject to delays. Parties 

submitting comments should consider 

using an express mail firm to ensure 

their prompt filing of any submissions 

not filed electronically or by hand. If 

you wish to get confirmation that FTA 

received your comments, you must 

include a self-addressed stamped 

postcard. All comments received will be 

posted without change to http://

www.regulations.gov, including any 

personal information provided. You 

may review U.S. DOT’s complete 

Privacy Act Statement published in the 

Federal Register on April 11, 2000, at 

65 FR 19476 or http://

DocketsInfo.dot.gov. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Margaret Schilling, National Transit 

Database Program Manager, Office of 

Budget and Policy, (202) 366–2054, or 

email: margaret.schilling@dot.gov. 

Office hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 

p.m., Monday through Friday, except 

Federal holidays. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Introduction 

The National Transit Database (NTD) 

is the Federal Transit Administration’s 

(FTA) 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, 821 transit providers in 

urbanized areas report to the NTD 

through its online reporting system. 

Each year, performance data from these 

submissions are used to apportion over 

$7 billion of FTA funds for Urbanized 

Area Formula (section 5307) grants, 

Rural Area Formula (section 5311) 

grants, Tribal Transit Formula grants, 

Bus and Bus Facilities Formula (section 

5339) grants, and State of Good Repair 

(section 5337) grants. The data is made 

available on the NTD Web site at 

www.ntdprogram.gov for the benefit of 

the public, transit systems, and all 

levels of government. The data is 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 Reporting 

Manuals that are issued each year. The 

USOA is the chart of accounts and 

accounting manual that describes how 

transit agencies are to report to the NTD. 

The USOA was originally published in 

1977 when NTD reporting began. While 

the NTD has undergone numerous and 

substantial changes in the past 38 years, 

the USOA was last updated for minor 

changes in 1995. This notice proposes 

updates to the USOA to better align 

with today’s NTD and accounting 

practices and to address FTA data needs 

and common questions among NTD 

reporters. 

II. Background 

This notice proposes changes to the 

USOA that impact NTD reporting 

requirements. FTA proposes that 

changes A–J below take effect starting 

with the FY17 data reporting cycle. 

Change K below, the revised APC 

certification policy, would take effect 

when changes are proposed in the 

Federal Register. Following is a 

summary of proposed changes: 

A. Separation of ‘‘Passenger-Paid Fares’’ 

and ‘‘Organization-Paid Fares’’ 

B. Separation of ‘‘Paid Absences’’ From 

‘‘Fringe Benefits’’ 

C. Consolidation of ‘‘Casualty and 

Liability Costs’’ Under General 

Administration Function 

D. Expansion of Assets and Liabilities 

Object Classes (F–60) 

E. Addition of ‘‘Voluntary NonExchange Transactions’’ 

F. Addition of ‘‘Sales and Disposals of 

Assets’’ 

G. Simplification of State Fund 

Reporting 

H. Reorganization of B–30 Contractual 

Relationship 

Additionally, this notice proposes the 

following changes to the NTD reporting 

requirements that are not directly 

addressed in the updated USOA: 

I. Separation of Operators’ and NonOperators’ Work Hours and Counts 

J. Enhanced Auditor’s Review 

K. Revised APC Certification Policy 

Finally, FTA seeks comments on the 

decision to not require a separate nonadd item for police force expenses. 

III. Proposed Changes to the National 

Transit Database Reporting 

Requirements 

A. Separation of ‘‘Passenger-Paid Fares’’ 

and ‘‘Organization-Paid Fares’’ 

Currently, the NTD category 

‘‘Passenger Fares’’ includes both 

directly paid fares collected via 

standard methods such as a farebox or 

purchase of monthly passes and less 

direct fares—for example, where a 

university pays the transit agency to 

provide fare-free service to students. 

This combination of revenue sources 

has been confusing to some reporters. 

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Federal Register / Vol. 81, No. 22 / Wednesday, February 3, 2016 / Notices 5817 

There are examples where guidance is 

ambiguous, including when another 

entity pays the transit agency for service 

but does not pay the full cost of the 

service. 

In order to address these issues and 

clarify reporting requirements, FTA 

proposes the separation of Passenger 

Fares into two categories: ‘‘PassengerPaid Fares’’ and ‘‘Organization-Paid 

Fares.’’ Traditional fare revenue would 

be captured as ‘‘Passenger-Paid Fares’’, 

while other ‘‘farelike’’ revenue would be 

‘‘Organization-Paid Fares.’’ This 

proposed update provides additional 

insight into the sources of revenues and 

helps the reporters identify peers with 

similar operating models. 

B. Separation of ‘‘Paid Absences’’ From 

‘‘Fringe Benefits’’ 

Currently the NTD includes 

employees’ paid absences, e.g., vacation 

time, holidays, and sick leave, as 

‘‘Fringe Benefits.’’ However, this differs 

from many reporters’ internal accounts; 

many reporters classify these expenses 

as salaries and wages. 

In order to resolve this discrepancy, 

FTA proposes the creation of a new 

category ‘‘Paid Absences.’’ This category 

would be further divided between 

operators and non-operators, to align 

with the way salaries and wages are 

reported in NTD. FTA considered 

simply moving paid absences from 

‘‘Fringe Benefits’’ to ‘‘Salaries and 

Wages,’’ but did not propose this change 

because it would produce a 

discontinuity in the data over time. 

C. Consolidation of ‘‘Casualty and 

Liability Costs’’ Under General 

Administration Function 

Currently the NTD captures ‘‘Casualty 

and Liability Costs’’ expenses under 

three functions: Vehicle Maintenance, 

Non-Vehicle Maintenance, and General 

Administration. However, these 

expenses are reported under these 

functions inconsistently across 

reporters. Some reporters divide the 

expenses among the three functions 

according to the type of expense, while 

others report all ‘‘Casualty and Liability 

Costs’’ under General Administration. 

Due to the intricacy and variety of 

expenses classified as ‘‘Casualty and 

Liability Costs,’’ it may be impractical to 

provide classifications for all possible 

‘‘Casualty and Liability Costs’’ by 

function. Therefore, FTA proposes that 

reporters consolidate all ‘‘Casualty and 

Liability Costs’’ under the General 

Administration function. While this 

would produce a one-time discontinuity 

in the data for some reporters, it would 

improve comparability of data across 

reporters in the future and reduce 

reporting burden. 

D. Expansion of Assets and Liabilities 

Object Classes (F–60) 

The current F–60 Statement of 

Finances form was instituted with the 

purpose of providing a transit agency’s 

financial status at a glance. However the 

required fields in the current form do 

not provide a comprehensive insight 

into the agency’s financial status. Its 

limited nature makes it only marginally 

useful for this purpose while creating 

confusion for reporters in determining 

what information to report. 

FTA proposes expanding the form to 

resemble an agency’s published balance 

sheet at the summary level. FTA 

initially considered requiring agencies 

to upload their published balanced 

sheets to NTD but decided against this 

because it would not provide uniform 

categories with which to facilitate fair 

peer comparisons and calculation of 

financial metrics. FTA proposes the 

following categories: 

• Assets 

Æ Current Assets 

D Cash and Cash Equivalents 

D Accounts Receivable 

D Inventory 

D Prepaid Expenses 

D Current Investments and Current 

Portions of Long-Term Investments 

D Other Current Assets 

Æ Noncurrent Assets 

D Capital Assets 

D Intangible Assets 

D Capital Leases Receivable 

D Pension Funds 

D Special Funds 

D Work in Process 

D Investments 

• Liabilities 

Æ Current Liabilities 

D Current Accounts Payable 

D Short-Term Debt and Current 

Portions of Long-Term Debt 

D Accrued Liabilities 

D Other Current Liabilities 

Æ Noncurrent Liabilities 

D Long-Term Debt 

D Noncurrent Accounts Payable 

D Capital Lease Obligations 

D Long-Term Pension Liabilities 

D Estimated Liabilities 

D Other Noncurrent Liabilities 

E. Addition of ‘‘Voluntary NonExchange Transactions’’ 

The existing USOA did not provide 

guidance on how agencies should report 

transaction in which an entity does not 

receive equal return for what it 

provides. For example, if one agency 

constructs a new fixed rail line and 

transfers ownership to another agency, 

this transaction is called a ‘‘Voluntary 

Non-Exchange Transaction.’’ 

FTA proposes the addition of revenue 

and expense fields for ‘‘Voluntary NonExchange Transactions’’ on the F–10 

Sources of Funds: Non-Added Revenue 

and F–40 Operating Expenses Summary 

and Reconciling Items forms. The 

reporter providing the asset or service 

would record the value of the asset as 

a reconciling item expense, while the 

receiving reporter would record its 

value as non-added revenue, which 

means it would not be included in the 

reporter’s revenue total alongside cash 

revenues like fares, local funds, and 

federal grants. This would provide 

explanation for the sudden decrease/

increase in assets. 

F. Addition of Sales and Disposals of 

Assets 

Currently, the USOA includes funds 

received from selling or disposing 

capital assets in directly generated 

funds. In most cases this activity is not 

considered a revenue, since the agency 

is simply converting an asset from one 

form to another (e.g., capital asset to 

cash) rather than increasing its total 

assets. FTA proposes to add an object 

class called ‘‘Sales and Disposals of 

Assets’’ under the category Non-Added 

Revenues on the F–10 Sources of Funds 

to capture funds earned from sales and 

disposals of capital assets. When the 

agency recognizes a gain on such a sale 

by selling the asset for more than its 

book value, the gain would be reported 

as revenue. 

G. Simplification of State Fund 

Reporting 

All State funding comes either from 

the General Fund or the Transportation 

Fund. Currently, the NTD requires 

transit agencies to report the 

Transportation Fund at the original 

dedicated sources of funds level such as 

fuel taxes, income taxes, and vehicle 

registration fees. However, it has proved 

impractical for reporters to separate 

their Transportation Funds into these 

categories, since the proportion of the 

Transportation Funds provided by each 

funding source changes from year to 

year, and in many cases, occurs before 

the funding ever reaches the transit 

agency. 

FTA proposes to consolidate all 

Dedicated Funds and Other Funds 

under the State section on the F–10 

Sources of Funds form into a single 

category called ‘‘State Transportation 

Funds.’’ Rather than gathering 

inaccurate or inconsistent data, NTD 

will simply collect whether state 

funding comes from the General Fund 

or the Transportation Fund. 

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5818 Federal Register / Vol. 81, No. 22 / Wednesday, February 3, 2016 / Notices 

H. Reorganization of B–30 Contractual 

Relationship 

At present, the B–30 Contractual 

Relationship form requires agencies to 

perform counterintuitive calculations 

and report data in fields with names 

that are difficult to understand. As a 

result, agencies may report inaccurate 

and inconsistent data into the NTD and 

data users have difficulty interpreting 

NTD data. 

FTA proposes to have three different 

versions of this form, customized based 

on whether the fare revenues are 

retained by the contractor or by the 

reporter, and whether the purchased 

transportation mode is Vanpool. The 

customized forms will reduce confusion 

regarding the calculation that must be 

performed to report data into the form. 

In the new scheme, there would be 

separate versions of the form for the 

case where the contractor retains the 

fare revenue, and the case where the 

agency retains the fare revenue. The 

reporter would complete fields called 

‘‘Purchased Transportation Fare 

Revenue,’’ ‘‘Direct Payment,’’ ‘‘Capital 

Leasing,’’ ‘‘Other Operating Expenses 

Incurred by the Buyer,’’ and ‘‘Other 

Reconciling Item Expenses Incurred by 

the Buyer.’’ 

In addition, FTA proposes that 

Vanpool mode should have its own 

version of the B–30 form. This will 

reflect the ways Vanpool contracts 

usually differ from other purchased 

transportation contracts. Vanpool 

reporters would complete fields called 

‘‘Passenger Fees,’’ ‘‘Passenger Out-ofPocket Expenses,’’ ‘‘Agency Subsidy,’’ 

‘‘Capital Leasing,’’ ‘‘Other Operating 

Expenses Incurred by the Buyer,’’ and 

‘‘Other Reconciling Item Expenses 

Incurred by the Buyer.’’ 

I. Separation of Operators’ and NonOperators’ Work Hours and Counts 

On the F–30 Operating Expenses 

form, NTD collects data on salaries and 

wages for operators and non-operators 

separately. However, on the R–10 

Employees form, NTD currently collects 

data on hours worked and employee 

counts for these categories combined. 

FTA proposes that NTD collect data 

on hours worked and employee counts 

for operators and non-operators 

separately. This would allow 

calculation of separate wage rates and 

hours per employee for these two 

categories, which would be useful data 

to any user interested in labor costs. The 

data should be readily available in most 

agencies’ payroll systems and thus a 

marginal increase in burden. 

J. Enhanced Auditor’s Review 

Currently FTA requires NTD reporters 

to undergo a one-time auditor’s review 

at the commencement of reporting. The 

agency must file an Independent 

Auditor’s Statement for Financial Data. 

The purpose of this review is to ensure 

that the reporter is equipped to report to 

the NTD according to FTA’s 

requirements, using accrual accounting 

and the USOA. There is currently little 

guidance on when, if ever, an agency 

must obtain a new Auditor’s Statement. 

In addition, Reduced Reporters (Small 

Systems) are not required to perform 

this review. 

FTA proposes that Reduced Reporters 

be required to undergo this review, and 

further, that all NTD reporters be 

required to undergo a new review once 

every ten years. This would provide 

additional confidence that all reporters 

are conforming to FTA’s reporting 

requirements. Due to the limited nature 

and infrequency of this review, this new 

requirement should not be overly 

burdensome to reporters. 

K. Revised APC Certification Policy 

The NTD requires the reporting of 

ridership data, both unlinked passenger 

trips (UPT) and passenger miles traveled 

(PMT), by mode and type of service. 

These two data items are important 

measures of service consumed and are 

used by many analysts to assess the 

effectiveness of transit services. PMT is 

also used in the annual formula 

allocation of federal transit funds for the 

Urbanized Area Formula Program 

(§ 5307) and the Bus and Bus Facilities 

Grants (§ 5339). 

Some transit agencies use automatic 

passenger counters (APCs) for collecting 

UPT and PMT. This requires prior FTA 

approval. If a transit agency fails to 

obtain FTA approval in advance, the 

NTD will not accept the reported APCderived data. 

In the current certification process 

FTA requires agencies to submit the 

following plans: 

• An APC benchmarking plan for the 

first year and, 

• AN APC maintenance plan for 

subsequent years. 

The APC benchmarking plan must 

include a validation of the APC 

measuring process for UPT and PMT 

data against a separate manual sample 

covering a full year. The maintenance 

plan includes an annual checkup to 

insure that the APC system continues to 

function correctly. 

We propose to revise the certification 

requirements for new APC systems and 

for maintenance testing of all APC 

systems. FTA believes that APC 

technologies have advanced to the point 

where they produce better data than 

sampling with manual counts and, as 

such, we no longer need the extensive 

comparisons we have required in the 

past. The goal of the new certification 

procedures proposed here is to insure 

that APC data collection systems are 

implemented correctly while reducing 

the time and effort required for reporters 

to demonstrate this. 

We propose to revise the 

benchmarking test by eliminating the 

full year comparison of manual and 

APC counts on randomly-selected trips 

and replacing it with a more 

comprehensive comparison of a much 

smaller number of trips. Reporters with 

fewer than 30 APC-equipped vehicles 

would need to evaluate fifteen trips. 

Reporters with more than 30 APCequipped vehicles would need to 

evaluate a number of trips equivalent to 

half their number of APC-equipped 

vehicles, up to a maximum of 50 trips. 

The trips selected for evaluation must 

meet the following requirements: 

• The trips must include some of the 

reporter’s heaviest passenger loads, 

• The trips must be distributed over 

as much of the agency’s fleet of APCequipped vehicles as possible, and 

• Manual and APC data sets must be 

collected for each trip. 

Trips do not have to be selected 

randomly. They can be spread over any 

convenient period of time. They no 

longer need to be distributed over an 

entire year. 

Manual counts can be made using 

data collection staff or on-board 

cameras. To insure accurate counts we 

recommend using a data collector at 

each door on heavily-loaded trips. APC 

data should be processed to correct for 

anomalies as it would be in the 

reporter’s normal data collection 

process. The objective is to compare 

manually-collected data with processed 

APC data and demonstrate that they are 

equivalent or that any differences are 

justifiable. 

Reporters would be required to 

analyze the manual and APC data on a 

side-by-side basis to identify and 

explain inconsistencies. APC and 

manual counts of passengers getting on 

and off at each stop should be compared 

for each trip. FTA may ask to see this 

data as part of our certification review. 

A report on the results of the analysis 

must be submitted to FTA with the 

certification request. This report would 

include: 

• Description of the APC system(s) 

used, 

• Description of the benchmarking 

procedure, 

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Federal Register / Vol. 81, No. 22 / Wednesday, February 3, 2016 / Notices 5819 

• Description of trips that were 

eliminated due to APC data that failed 

diagnostic tests, 

• Comparison of distances between 

stops used by the two methods, 

• Passenger count comparison (% 

difference), 

• Passenger miles comparison (% 

difference), and 

• Calculation of unbalanced error 

over all trips (sum of magnitude of 

differences in on and off counts at each 

stop as a percentage of the sum of 

manually counted on and offs). 

FTA would certify APC systems 

where the passenger count comparison, 

passenger mile comparison, and 

unbalanced error over all benchmark 

trips are each less than five percent 

(5%). Reporters that file a reduced 

report (formerly called a small systems 

waiver) do not need to meet the 

standards for passenger miles or 

unbalanced error. 

We propose to eliminate the 

maintenance plan requirement and 

replace it with a repetition of the 

benchmarking test in every fiscal year 

that is evenly divisible by three. APC 

systems already approved for NTD 

reporting would need to be retested in 

the next fiscal year that is evenly 

divisible by three. 

Transit agencies that collect this 

ridership data on all (>98 percent) of 

their vehicle trips may correct for 

missing trips using average values. 

However, if the vehicle trips with 

missing data exceed two percent (2%) of 

all trips, agencies would need to have a 

qualified statistician approve the 

correction (or expansion) method. This 

is consistent with our treatment of 

manual counting methods and does not 

represent a change in policy. Thus an 

agency that does not have a fleet that is 

fully-equipped with APCs could use 

APC data in any NTD-approved 

sampling plan. 

IV. Additional Comment Request 

Additionally, FTA considered 

requiring transit systems to report their 

police force expense as a separate nonadd item in the F–30 Operating 

Expenses form in addition to reporting 

it in the appropriate operating expense 

object classes (e.g., Salaries and Wages 

and Fringe Benefits). This change would 

have enabled a transit system with its 

own independent police force to 

subtract the police force expense from 

total operating expenses in order to 

perform a fair peer evaluation against 

another entity without its own police 

force. However, FTA decided against 

this change, as there are other types of 

police or security force arrangements 

that are not included in this 

consideration (e.g., municipal police 

force). Additionally, employing an 

independent police force is an 

operational decision and the related 

expenses are justifiable operating cost. 

FTA suggests that data users consider 

security arrangements when selecting 

peer groups for comparison in order to 

control for differences in operating cost. 

FTA seeks comment from transit 

systems on this decision. 

FTA thanks our stakeholders in 

advance for providing comment on the 

above proposed changes to the NTD 

reporting requirement. 

Therese W. McMillan, 

Acting Administrator. 

[FR Doc. 2016–01941 Filed 2–2–16; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE P 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

[Docket No. DOT–OST–2016–0007] 

Notice of Request for Clearance of a 

Revision of a Currently Approved 

Information Collection: National 

Census of Ferry Operators 

AGENCY: Bureau of Transportation 

Statistics (BTS), Office of the Assistant 

Secretary for Research and Technology 

(OST–R), DOT. 

ACTION: Notice and request for 

comments. 

SUMMARY: In accordance with the 

requirements of section 3506(c)(2)(A) of 

the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 

this notice announces the intention of 

the BTS to request the Office of 

Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) 

approval for an information collection 

related to the nation’s ferry operations. 

The information collected will be used 

to produce a descriptive database of 

existing ferry operations. A summary 

report of survey findings will also be 

published by BTS on the BTS Web page. 

DATES: Comments must be submitted on 

or before April 4, 2016. 

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments 

identified by DOT Docket ID Number 

DOT–OST–2016–0007 to the U.S. 

Department of Transportation (DOT), 

Dockets Management System (DMS). 

You may submit your comments by mail 

or in person to the Docket Clerk, Docket 

No., U.S. Department of Transportation, 

1200 New Jersey Ave. SE., West 

Building, Room W12–140, Washington, 

DC 20590. Comments should identify 

the docket number as indicated above. 

Paper comments should be submitted 

in duplicate. The DMS is open for 

examination and copying, at the above 

address, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday 

through Friday, except federal holidays. 

If you wish to receive confirmation of 

receipt of your written comments, 

please include a self-addressed, 

stamped postcard with the following 

statement: ‘‘Comments on Docket DOT– 

OST–2016–0007.’’ 

The Docket Clerk will date stamp the 

postcard prior to returning it to you via 

the U.S. mail. Please note that due to 

delays in the delivery of U.S. mail to 

Federal offices in Washington, DC, we 

recommend that persons consider an 

alternative method (the Internet, fax, or 

professional delivery service) to submit 

comments to the docket and ensure 

their timely receipt at U.S. DOT. You 

may fax your comments to the DMS at 

(202) 493–2251. Comments can also be 

viewed and/or submitted via the Federal 

Rulemaking Portal: http://

www.regulations.gov. 

Please note that anyone is able to 

electronically search all comments 

received into our docket management 

system by the name of the individual 

submitting the comment (or signing the 

comment if submitted on behalf of an 

association, business, labor union, etc.). 

You may review DOT’s complete 

Privacy Act Statement in the Federal 

Register published on April 11, 2000 

(Volume 65, Number 70; pages 19475– 

19570) or you may review the Privacy 

Act Statement at http://

www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Janine L. Bonner, (202) 366–2468, NCFO 

Project Manager, BTS, OST–R, 

Department of Transportation, 1200 

New Jersey Ave. SE., Room E34–411, 

Washington, DC 20590. Office hours are 

from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., E.T., 

Monday through Friday, except Federal 

holidays. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

Title: National Census of Ferry 

Operators (NCFO). 

Background: The Transportation 

Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA– 

21) (P.L. 105–178), section 1207(c), 

directed the Secretary of Transportation 

to conduct a study of ferry 

transportation in the United States and 

its possessions. In 2000, the Federal 

Highway Administration (FHWA) Office 

of Intermodal and Statewide Planning 

conducted a survey of approximately 

250 ferry operators to identify: (1) 

Existing ferry operations including the 

location and routes served; (2) source 

and amount, if any, of funds derived 

from Federal, State, or local 

governments supporting ferry 

construction or operations; (3) potential 

domestic ferry routes in the United 

States and its possessions; and (4) 

potential for use of high speed ferry 

services and alternative-fueled ferry 

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