[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 86 (Thursday, May 2, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 35922-35924]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-09516]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Federal Highway Administration
[Docket No. FHWA-2024-0031]
Agency Information Collection Activities: Notice of Request for
Revision of a Currently Approved Information Collection
AGENCY: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice of request for revision of a currently approved
information collection.
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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 a renewal of an existing information collection. We are required to
publish this notice in the Federal Register by the Paperwork Reduction
Act of 1995.
DATES: Please submit comments by June 3, 2024.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by DOT Docket ID Number
0031 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: Go to 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 20590-0001.
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: 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: We published a Federal Register Notice with
a 60-day public comment period on this information collection on
December 14, 2023, at [88 FR 86719]. The comments and FHWA's responses
to the 60-day notice are below:
Comment 1
I admire embracing the internet as a survey tool. Too often the
decrease in landline usage has been seen as the harbinger of the
survey's death. Taking advantage of changing technology, not only the
internet but also smartphones, points to intelligent survey design and
strategy. Also, the estimated total number of burden hours makes sense
and parallels the importance of these survey results in evaluating
transit in the United States. I would be curious to learn if the
initial offer of 2 dollars is enough to garner the interest of most
survey takers, and how much total money is earmarked for compensating
survey takers. I agree that 2 dollars is a better incentive than
nothing, but I fear the number might not be enticing enough for most
survey takers. Of
[[Page 35923]]
course, the total compensation for completing the survey is 20 dollars,
so perhaps that might be enough incentive even if the initial offering
appears minute. I am also curious as to what determines the frequency
of these surveys and perhaps the final proposal could briefly explain
the history of past surveys and how the USDOT determines when another
survey is due. In any case, I think the survey as proposed holds
tremendous importance for federal and state agencies, especially in the
face of climate change. Climate change is already impacting how
Americans move, from the buying of electric cars to the shunning of a
walk outside because the heat is too intense, and gaining knowledge
about these changing trends could help us embrace a greener future.
DOT Response
Incentives: The amount to offer as an initial incentive was tested
as part of the 2022 NHTS pilot. In that test, the initial amount varied
between $2 and $5. The difference in participation levels between the
two groups was 1.7%, suggesting that the $2 incentive was strong enough
to elicit participation from the general public.
Title: 2024 Next Generation National Household Travel Survey
(NextGen NHTS).
OMB Control: 2125-0545.
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
US, 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 more than half a century. Previous
surveys were conducted in 1969, 1977, 1983, 1990, 1995, 2001, 2009,
2017 and 2022. The current survey will be the tenth 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,
Traffic behavior of specific demographic groups such as
Millennials, Gen Z, 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 stratified random sample of
households that represent a broad range of geographic and demographic
characteristics. Letters and postcards are sent to selected households
requesting some basic demographic and contact information and inviting
them to participate in the diary survey. The recruitment survey is
completed on the study website.
Households who complete the recruitment survey are subsequently
invited to complete a diary survey. All household members aged 5 and
older are eligible. The household is assigned to record their travel on
a specific day and asked to note every trip taken during a 24-hour
period. Based upon their preferences, the travel information is then
reported through a survey website, a smartphone app., or through a
telephone interview.
Reminders are sent periodically to households who do not respond
within the expected timeframe. Monetary incentives are provided in
increasing amounts for all households that complete the 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. A total of 7,500 households will comprise the national
sample for the 2024 survey.
Issues Related to Sampling. The sampling design reflects the U.S.
household trends of decreasing landline telephone ownership and
increasing access to the internet. The 2024 NextGen NHTS will leverage
this shift in technology, in particular the move away from home
telephone usage, to structure a research design that uses mail, web,
smartphone app. and telephone data collection modes. The methodological
approach starts with a national address-based sample (ABS).
The survey sample will be drawn from the ABS frame maintained by
Marketing Systems Group (MSG). It originates from the U.S. Postal
Service (USPS) Computerized Delivery Sequence file (CDS) and is updated
on a monthly basis. MSG also provides the ability to match some
auxiliary variables (e.g., race/ethnicity, education, household income)
to a set of sampled addresses. MSG geocodes their entire ABS frame, so
block-, block group-, and tract-level characteristics from the
Decennial Census and the American Community Survey (ACS) may be
appended to addresses and used for sampling and/or data collection
purposes.
Sample Size. Completed surveys will be obtained from a nationally
representative sample of 7,500 households. Assuming response rates of
26 percent for the recruitment stage, 60 percent at the diary stage,
and a residency rate of 92 percent for sampled addresses, a total of
52,258 sampled addresses will be required to attain the targeted 7,500
responding households.
Stratification. The sample will be stratified by Census Division
and urban/rural classification (18 strata total). The target sample
size (of responding households) will then be initially allocated among
the strata according to the proportion of addresses falling in the
stratum determined by the counts of addresses from the American
Community Survey (ACS).
With the ABS approach, identifying targeted areas that correspond
to those
[[Page 35924]]
for which estimates can be developed from the NHTS data are
straightforward. Geocoding and GIS processing can be used to link
addresses to states and counties in a highly reliable fashion. There
can be some ambiguity for addresses that are P.O. boxes or are listed
as rural route addresses. These can be handled in a routine manner with
a set of well-defined rules as such addresses will represent only a
small proportion of the population. Thus, no important issues arise in
the definition of areas with an ABS sample design that relies on mail
for initial contact, as is the case with the proposed approach.
Assignments for recording travel data by sampled households will be
equally distributed across all days to ensure a balanced day-of-week
distribution. The sample (of recruitment letters to households) will be
released periodically through a process that will control the balance
of travel days by month.
Data Collection Methods
An updated approach to enhancing survey response has been
developed. This includes providing progressive monetary incentives and
using a mail with push-to-web recruitment survey that is just 5 minutes
in length. Upon completing the recruitment survey, household members
aged 5 and older are offered the opportunity to provide their travel on
an assigned travel day via a smartphone app. or web using a unique
personal identification number (PIN) or telephone interview.
Information Proposed for Collection
Recruitment. The survey will begin with mailing the sampled
households an initial invitation letter followed by postcard and letter
reminders. The letter will contain a $2 cash incentive per household
and promised incentives (up to $20 per person) to encourage diary
completion. Participants will complete the recruitment survey on the
web. The survey is designed to collect key household information (e.g.,
enumeration of household members), basic demographic characteristics
(e.g., age, gender, etc.), and personal contact information (e.g.,
email address and telephone number). To support recruitment, the study
will provide a toll-free number on survey materials. The study website
will provide responses to likely questions and will serve as the portal
to the survey.
Diary Retrieval. The travel day diary data will be collected from
respondents either from self-reporting via the web or a smartphone
app., or from professionally trained interviewers using a computer-
assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system. The questionnaire and
back-end systems allow 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 at the back end to assist with information such as
vehicle makes and models. Google API is 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 vehicles and 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 are automatically
programmed to reduce reporting errors, 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.
The study website and web instrument will be reviewed for Section
508 compliance using the rules specified in sections 1194.22--`Web-
based intranet and internet information and applications' and 1194.23--
`Telecommunications products.' All materials will be available in both
English and Spanish language forms. Spanish translations will be
developed using industry standards and will apply reverse- translation
protocols.
Respondents: A stratified random sample of 7,500 households across
the 50 states and the District of Columbia will be included in the
survey. Household will include an average of 2.5 members for a total of
18,750 individual respondents 5 years and older to the diary survey.
Frequency: This is a periodic study last conducted in 2022.
Estimated Average Burden per Response: It will take approximately 5
minutes per household member to complete the recruitment survey, and 20
minutes per eligible household member to complete the diary survey.
Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: It is estimated that a total
of 29,375 persons will complete the survey. This includes 5,000 persons
in households who completed just the recruitment survey and did not
participate in the diary survey and 16,125 persons who completed both
the recruitment and diary surveys. This results in approximately 6,417
hours of support for this data collection effort assuming an average of
5 minutes per household for the recruitment, and 20 minutes per
household member (aged 5 and older) for the diary survey.
Public Comments Invited: You are asked to comment on any aspect of
this information collection, including: (1) Whether the proposed
collection is necessary for the FHWA's performance; (2) the accuracy of
the estimated burdens; (3) ways for the FHWA to enhance the quality,
usefulness, and clarity of the collected information; and (4) ways that
the burden could be minimized, including the use of electronic
technology, 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: April 27, 2024.
Jazmyne Lewis,
Information Collection Officer.
[FR Doc. 2024-09516 Filed 5-1-24; 8:45 am]
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