[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, [email protected], 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,

[[Page 6260]]

     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

[[Page 6261]]

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]
 BILLING CODE P