Agency Information Collection Activities: Request for Comments for Periodic Information Collection |
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Michael Howell
Federal Highway Administration
4 February 2020
[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 4, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6259-6261]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-02092]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Highway Administration
[Docket No. FHWA-2125-0005]
Agency Information Collection Activities: Request for Comments
for Periodic Information Collection
AGENCY: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), U.S. Department of
Transportation (USDOT).
ACTION: Notice of request for approval of a new information collection
and request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The FHWA has forwarded the information collection request
described in this notice to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
for approval of a new (periodic) information collection. We published a
Federal Register Notice with a 60-day public comment period on this
information collection on November 18, 2019. We are required to publish
this notice in the Federal Register by the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995.
DATES: Please submit comments by March 5, 2020.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments within 30 days identified by DOT
Docket ID Number (FHWA-2125-0005) by any of the following methods:
Website: For access to the docket to read background documents or
comments received, go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online instructions for submitting
comments.
Fax: 1-202-493-2251.
Mail: Docket Management Facility; U.S. Department of
Transportation, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New
Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590.
Hand Delivery or Courier: U.S. Department of Transportation, West
Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE,
Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday through
Friday, except Federal holidays.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions concerning the Next
Generation National Household Travel Survey (Next Gen NHTS), please
contact Daniel Jenkins, 202-366-1067, daniel.jenkins@dot.gov, National
Travel Behavior Data Program Manager, Federal Highway Administration,
Office of Policy, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room E83-414, Washington,
DC 20590, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Title: Next Generation National Household Travel Survey (Next Gen
NHTS).
Type of Request: New request for periodic information collection
requirement.
Background: Title 23, United States Code, Section 502 authorizes
the USDOT to carry out advanced research and transportation research to
measure the performance of the surface transportation systems in the
U.S., including the efficiency, energy use, air quality, congestion,
and safety of the highway and intermodal transportation systems. The
USDOT is charged with the overall responsibility to obtain current
information on national patterns of travel, which establishes a data
base to better understand travel behavior, evaluate the use of
transportation facilities, and gauge the impact of the USDOT's policies
and programs.
The NHTS is the USDOT's authoritative nationally representative
data source for daily passenger travel. This inventory of travel
behavior reflects travel mode (e.g., private vehicles, public
transportation, walk and bike) and trip purpose (e.g., travel to work,
school, recreation, personal/family trips) by U.S. household residents.
Survey results are used by federal and state agencies to monitor the
performance and adequacy of current facilities and infrastructure, and
to plan for future needs.
The collection and analysis of national transportation data has
been of critical importance for half a century. Previous surveys were
conducted in 1969, 1977, 1983, 1990, 1995, 2001, 2009, and 2017. The
current survey will be the ninth in this series, and allow researchers,
planners, and officials at the state and federal levels to monitor
travel trends.
Data from the NHTS are widely used to support research needs within
the USDOT, and State and local agencies, in addition to responding to
queries from Congress, the research community and the media on
important issues. Current and recent topics of interest include:
Travel to work patterns by transportation mode for
infrastructure improvements and congestion reduction,
Access to public transit, paratransit, and rail services
by various demographic groups,
Measures of travel by mode to establish exposure rates for
risk analyses,
Support for Federal, State, and local planning activities
and policy evaluation,
Active transportation by walk and bike to establish the
relationship to public health issues,
Vehicle usage for energy consumption analysis,
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Traffic behavior of specific demographic groups such as
Millennials and the aging population.
Within the USDOT, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) holds
responsibility for technical and funding coordination. The National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Federal Transit
Administration (FTA), and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS)
are also primary data users, and have historically participated in
project planning and financial support.
Proposed Data Acquisition Methodology
NHTS data are collected from a probability-based sample comprised
of a representative mixture of households with respect to various
geodemographic characteristics. For this purpose, a previously
recruited national panel will serve as the sampling frame. Email
invitations which will include a link to an online household survey
will be sent to selected panel members requesting some basic
demographic and contact information inviting them to participate in the
survey. The invitation email will mention the purpose of the study,
underline the voluntary nature of survey participation, provide
information about incentive, and contain the link that will take
respondents directly into the survey. KnowledgePanel members can also
access the online survey by logging into their specific KnowledgePanel
home page, where they will find a hyperlink to surveys for which they
have been selected.
Email reminders will be sent periodically to households who do not
respond within the expected timeframe. Monetary incentives will be
provided for all households that complete the survey. As the burden is
higher for those in households with more people they will receive a
larger incentive amount. Households with 3 or fewer eligible members
(i.e., 5 years of age or older) will receive $5 when all householders
complete the travel survey. Households with 4 or more eligible members
will receive $10 for when all householders complete the travel survey.
The survey will collect data during an entire 12-month period so
that all 365 days of the year including weekends and holidays are
accounted for. To maximize the accuracy of the recall information and
to provide coverage for every day of the year, all retrieval surveys
will collect information about the travel during the previous 24 hours.
A total of 7,500 households will comprise the national sample for the
2020 data collection. As described below, changes in the establishment
of the sampling frame, the promotion of participation, and in data
retrieval techniques are planned, as compared to previous surveys, to
improve statistical precision, enhance response rates, and increase
survey efficiency.
Issues Related to Sampling. In previous years, the household sample
was identified using random digit dialing (RDD) techniques. Today, only
54 percent \1\ have a landline telephone in the home (down from 75%
during the 2009 NHTS) while nearly 88 percent of US households have
access to the internet \2\--although estimate of internet access are
subject to various measurement challenges due to the many different
ways household members can gain access to the web. This survey will
leverage this shift in technology, the move away from home telephone
usage, to structure a research design that uses web data collection
methods.
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\1\ Blumberg, S.J., and Luke, J.V. (2018). Wireless
substitution: Early release of estimates from the National Health
Interview Survey, July-December 2017. National Center for Health
Statistics. Available from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm.
\2\ Source: internet World Stats, 2017. https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats14.htm#north
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In 2020, the NHTS is moving to an online probability-based sample
approach. The sample will be drawn from a panel which is representative
of the national population. This approach allows for a better response
rate, making the NHTS data representative of the nation's travel
behavior, while lowering the burden on responding households. This is a
change from the national address-based sample (ABS), and the telephone-
based random digit dialing (RDD) sample design used in recent NHTS
efforts, while also incorporating core data elements that have been
part of the NHTS since 1969.
The panel is constructed by drawing from the USPS Delivery Sequence
File (DSF), which include all points of delivery in the US. The needed
address samples are obtained from Marketing Systems Group (MSG) that
provides the ability to match various auxiliary variables to the DSF
prior to sample selection. By geocoding the entire sampling frame, MSG
can append block-, block group-, and tract-level characteristics from
the Decennial Census and the American Community Survey (ACS) to each
delivery point.
Sample Size. In total, completed surveys will be secured for a
nationally representative sample of 7,500 households for the national
sample. Accounting for the various nonresponse and incompleteness
rates, however, we anticipate needing a starting sample of about 29,000
households to secure the desired number of completed surveys.
Stratification. The sample for this survey will be designed to
ensure broad coverage of the 50 states to produce the most efficient
estimates at the national level, as well as those needed for urban and
rural areas. Assuming equal costs and population variances across all
areas, the most efficient design is one in which the total sample is
allocated in proportion to the size of the civilian,
noninstitutionalized population in each area. In contrast, the most
efficient design for area-level estimates is one in which equal sample
sizes are allocated to each area. While different sample allocation
options for the national sample are being considered in order to arrive
at a final allocation for the NHTS national sample, unless required,
otherwise throughout this document it will be assumed that the national
sample of 7,500 households will be selected based on a proportional
allocation without any geographic oversampling.
Given the availability of a rich reservoir of profile data for all
panel members, with the panel approach identifying targeted areas
(e.g., urban/rural) that correspond to those for which efficient
estimates are needed will be rather straightforward. Moreover, with
this approach ambiguities related to addresses that are P.O. boxes or
those remaining as simplified (void of delivery details) will be
rendered moot.
Assignments for recording travel data by sampled households will be
equally distributed across all days to ensure an approximately balanced
day of week distribution. To this end, the sample will be released
periodically through a process that will control the balance of travel
days by month.
Data Collection Methods
The questionnaire for this survey will be designed to be relevant,
aesthetically pleasing, and elicit participation by including topics of
importance to the respondents.
Information Proposed for Collection
Recruitment and retrieval. The survey will begin with emailing the
sampled households an invitation to the study. The primary household
respondent will complete a short household roster to collect key
household information (e.g. enumeration of household members. Once the
household roster is complete, the respondent will proceed to a travel
diary pre-populated for each eligible member of the household.
Household travel diary. All travel information about a specific day
from every household member 5 years of age
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and older will be collected using the online travel diary.
Once the household roster is completed, the primary household
respondent will complete his or her diary and will serve as a proxy
responder for all children 5-15 years old in the household. Household
members 16 and older will be invited to complete their own online
diaries. If they fail to do so in a reasonable amount of time after
multiple reminders, the primary household member may be re-contacted to
serve as a proxy for non-responding teens and adults in the household.
The household travel diary will be based upon a single database
that allows for sophisticated branching and skip patterns to enhance
data retrieval by asking only those questions that are necessary and
appropriate for the individual participant. Look-up tables are included
to assist with information such as vehicle makes and models. The Google
map API will be used to assist in identifying specific place names and
locations. The location data for the participant's home, workplace, or
school are stored and automatically inserted in the dataset for trips
after the first report. Household rostering is a list of all persons in
the household that allows a trip to be reported from one household
member and can include another household member who travel together to
be inserted into the record for the second person. This automatic
insert of information reduces the burden of the second respondent to be
queried about a trip already reported by the initial respondent.
Data range, consistency and edit checks will be automatically
programmed to reduce reporting error, survey length, and maintain the
flow of information processing. Data cross checks also help reduce the
burden by ensuring that the reporting is consistent within each trip.
Estimated Burden Hours for Information Collection
Frequency: This collection will be conducted every 2-4 years in the
future.
Respondents. As mentioned earlier, a nationally representative
random sample of 7,500 households across the 50 states and the District
of Columbia will be included in this survey. Given that household will
include an average of 2.5 members 5-years of age or older, travel data
for a total of 18,750 individual respondents will be collected for the
main survey.
Estimated Average Burden per Response. It will take approximately 5
minutes to complete the roster data form, and 15 minutes to complete
the retrieval survey. This results in a total of 20 minutes for the
first household member and 15 minutes per additional household member.
Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours. It is estimated that a total
of 18,750 persons will be included in the survey. This would result in
approximately 5,312.5 hours of support for this data collection effort,
assuming an average of 17 minutes per person across the roster survey
and retrieval survey.
Public Comments Invited
You are asked to comment on any aspect of this information
collection, including: (1) Whether the proposed collection of
information is necessary for the USDOT's performance, including whether
the information will have practical utility; (2) the data acquisition
methods; (3) the accuracy of the USDOT's estimate of the burden of the
proposed information collection; (4) the types of data being acquired;
(5) ways to enhance the quality, usefulness, and clarity of the
collected information; and (6) ways that the burden could be minimized
without reducing the quality of the collected information. The agency
will summarize and/or include your comments in the request for OMB's
clearance of this information collection.
Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995; 44 U.S.C.
Chapter 35, as amended; and 49 CFR 1.48.
Issued on: January 30, 2020.
Michael Howell,
Information Collection Officer, Federal Highway Administration.
[FR Doc. 2020-02092 Filed 2-3-20; 8:45 am]
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