National Transit Database Reporting Changes and Clarifications

Published date09 April 2019
Citation84 FR 14189
Record Number2019-06943
SectionNotices
CourtFederal Transit Administration,Transportation Department
Federal Register, Volume 84 Issue 68 (Tuesday, April 9, 2019)
[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 68 (Tuesday, April 9, 2019)]
                [Notices]
                [Pages 14189-14194]
                From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
                [FR Doc No: 2019-06943]
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                DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
                Federal Transit Administration
                [Docket No. FTA-2018-0010]
                National Transit Database Reporting Changes and Clarifications
                AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration, DOT.
                ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
                -----------------------------------------------------------------------
                SUMMARY: This notice provides information on proposed changes and
                clarifications to the National Transit Database (NTD) reporting
                requirements. All proposed changes and clarifications will be effective
                for report year 2019 (beginning September 2019).
                DATES: Comments are due by June 10, 2019. FTA will consider late
                comments to the extent practicable.
                ADDRESSES: Please identify your submission by Docket Number (FTA-
                [[Page 14190]]
                2018-0010) through one of the following methods:
                 Federal eRulemaking Portal: Submit electronic comments and
                other data to http://www.regulations.gov.
                 U.S. Mail: Send comments to Docket Management Facility;
                U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West
                Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
                 Hand Delivery or Courier: Take comments to Docket
                Management Facility, 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. E.T., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
                 Fax: Fax comments to Docket Management Facility, U.S.
                Department of Transportation, at (202) 493-2251.
                 Instructions: You must include the agency name (Federal Transit
                Administration) and Docket Number (FTA-2018-0010) for this notice, at
                the beginning of your comments. If sent by mail, submit two copies of
                your comments. You may review U.S. DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement
                published in the Federal Register on April 11, 2000, at 65 FR 19477-8
                or http://DocketsInfo.dot.gov.
                 Electronic Access and Filing: This document and all comments
                received may be viewed online through the Federal rulemaking portal at
                http://www.regulations.gov or at the street address listed above.
                Electronic submission and retrieval help and guidelines are available
                on the website. It is available 24 hours each day, 365 days a year.
                Please follow the instructions. An electronic copy of this document may
                also be downloaded from the Office of the Federal Register's home page
                at https://www.federalregister.gov.
                FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Maggie Schilling, National Transit
                Database Program Manager, FTA Office of Budget and Policy, (202) 366-
                2054 or [email protected].
                SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
                Table of Contents
                A. Background and Overview
                B. Additional Types of Service
                 a. New Type of Service Classification for Demand Responsive
                Service Provided by Transportation Network Companies
                 b. New Type of Service To Distinguish Demand Response Taxi
                Service
                C. Changes to the A-30 Revenue Vehicle Asset forms
                 a. Add New Data Element To Identify Automated Vehicles
                 b. New Reporting on Safety Equipment on Rail Transit Vehicles
                D. Changes to the A-20--Adjust the Reporting Categories for Special
                Track Work
                E. Changes to the D-10--New Reporting on the Use of Automatic
                Passenger Counters
                F. Changes to the FFA-10--New Reporting on Vehicle Revenue Miles by
                State for Urbanized Area Reporters
                G. Changes to Safety Event Reporting
                 a. Clarification of Reportable Suicide Attempts
                 b. Modify Data Collection on Vehicles Involved in Reportable
                Safety Events
                 c. Add information on Drug and Alcohol Post-Accident Testing
                H. Clarification on Reporting Service Information on a Temporary Bus
                Bridge
                I. Clarification of Incidental Use for Transit Asset Reporting
                J. Allow Separate Mode Reporting for Geographically and Resource
                Separated Modes
                K. Clarification on Commuter Service Survey Standards
                L. Clarification on Reporting Linear Miles and Track Miles to the
                Asset Inventory
                M. Clarification of Rural Financial Data Reporting Requirement.
                A. Background and Overview
                 The National Transit Database (NTD) was established by Congress to
                be the Nation's primary source for information and statistics on the
                transit systems of the United States. Recipients and beneficiaries of
                Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grants under either the Urbanized
                Area Formula Program (49 U.S.C. 5307) or Rural Area Formula Program (49
                U.S.C. 5311) are required by law to report to the NTD.
                 Based on feedback from NTD stakeholders and the transit industry,
                FTA is proposing to make a number of reporting changes and
                clarifications to NTD reporting requirements. FTA seeks comment on the
                proposed changes and clarifications described below. Anticipated
                industry burden estimates and proposed implementation timelines are
                included in the discussion of each item.
                B. Additional Types of Service
                 The NTD currently collects financial and service information by
                mode (e.g., heavy rail, light rail, motorbus, commuter bus, etc.) and
                type of service (purchased transportation and directly operated
                transportation). Reporters must report separate service and financial
                information for each mode and type of service they operate. There are
                two types of service reported to the NTD: Directly operated (DO) and
                purchased transportation (PT). FTA is proposing the addition of two new
                types of service described below: Taxi (TX) and transportation network
                company (TN).
                 FTA proposes implementing these new types of service for the 2019
                report year.
                a. New Type of Service for Reportable Taxi Service
                 49 U.S.C. 5302 states that public transportation must be ``regular,
                continuing shared-ride surface transportation services that are open to
                the general public . . .''. FTA uses this definition to consider
                whether service is eligible to be reported to the NTD for inclusion in
                the data sets used by FTA to apportion formula grants.
                 Under this definition, taxi service is not considered public
                transportation; however, some agencies may contract with a taxi company
                to provide overflow capacity for their demand response service. In
                these arrangements, the request for the ride is dispatched through the
                agency's demand response service and the taxi company simply provides
                the vehicle for the demand response ride(s). These trips are reported
                to the NTD using the Demand Response Taxi (DT) mode.
                 FTA is proposing to eliminate the Demand Response Taxi (DT) mode
                and replace it with a type of service designation. Agencies would
                report current Demand Response Taxi (DT) rides as Demand Response (DR)
                rides with the type of service designation of Taxi (TX) defined as
                follows: The Taxi type of service is demand response transportation
                service provided by a private taxi company on behalf of a public
                transportation agency using a non-dedicated fleet. Services are
                directly dispatched by the agency and provided using the taxi company's
                drivers and vehicles.
                 Although this represents a change to the way the data would be
                captured in the system, it does not impact the reporting burden. Data
                that is reported to the NTD as ``Demand Response Taxi--Purchased
                Transportation'' would simply be relabeled as ``Demand Response--
                Taxi,'' with no change to the reporting requirements. FTA believes that
                this change will more precisely reflect that trips provided by this
                service are still demand response trips coordinated through a transit
                agency's dispatch system, but delivered by a taxi company.
                b. New Type of Service for Demand Responsive Service Provided by
                Transportation Network Companies
                 A growing number of transit agencies are establishing formal
                arrangements with transportation network companies (TNCs) to support
                first mile/last mile and/or demand responsive services to their riders.
                Reporters have asked for clarification on how to report these services
                to meet their NTD reporting obligations and to include data from
                [[Page 14191]]
                these services in the annual apportionment of formula funds. In
                addition, industry stakeholders have expressed a desire to use NTD data
                to identify these types of arrangements. In response to these needs,
                FTA is proposing the addition of a new type of service that would
                identify eligible public transportation provided by TNCs.
                 In assessing the best way to collect this information for both
                reporters and stakeholders, FTA considered two options: (1) The
                creation of a new mode of service, or (2) the creation of a new type of
                service for public transportation provided by TNCs. The burden for
                reporters would be identical in both cases. The creation of a new mode
                or type of service would require agencies reporting on public
                transportation provided by TNCs to separate the financial and operating
                information for these services from their other modes or types of
                service for NTD reporting.
                 While both approaches would allow agencies to report their services
                separately and provide transparency to stakeholders, FTA proposes to
                distinguish these services by type of service rather than mode because
                of the reporting flexibility provided by this option. While many of the
                current service agreements between transit agencies and TNCs are
                similar in nature to the Demand Response or Demand Response Taxi modes
                currently collected by the NTD, providing the flexibility for agencies
                to expand these types of arrangements into other modes of service would
                be possible by organizing the data by type of service rather than mode.
                 The FTA proposes a new type of service to collect information on
                transit provided by TNCs defined as follows: The Transportation Network
                Company (TN) type of service is for demand response transportation
                service provided by a transportation network company on behalf of a
                public transportation agency using a non-dedicated fleet. Services are
                open to the general public and are dispatched by the transportation
                network company using a mobile application. The FTA notes that several
                partnerships between TNCs and transit systems are currently funded as
                pilot programs through the Mobility on Demand Sandbox Program. As pilot
                programs are not ``regular and continuing,'' they are not currently
                reportable to the NTD. The new ``TN'' type of service, however, will be
                available for use for any partnership agreements that advance beyond
                the pilot stage, and which meet the definition of public
                transportation, including potential pilot projects originally funded
                through the FTA Mobility on Demand (MOD) Sandbox Program.
                C. Changes to the A-30 Revenue Vehicle Asset Forms
                a. Add New Data Element To Identify Automated Vehicles
                 In response to the growth in automated vehicle technology, FTA
                proposes adding a new data element to the A-30 Revenue Vehicle
                Inventory form to identify automated or autonomous vehicles. This
                information would be collected through a check box available by fleet
                to indicate if the vehicle fleet is comprised of automated vehicles.
                Agencies operating an automated or autonomous fleet of vehicles, be
                they rail or roadway vehicles, would check the box to indicate the
                fleet as such. If the fleet is not automated or autonomous, reporters
                would leave this box empty.
                 In addition, FTA proposes the following definition, which aligns
                with level 4 of the SAE International standard of automation, for
                inclusion in the NTD glossary to clarify this new requirement: A
                vehicle that is capable of performing all driving functions without
                human input under certain conditions.
                 The FTA estimates that the burden for this additional data element
                is negligible and proposes implementing this change in report year
                2019.
                 The FTA considered proposing a new mode for either autonomous rail
                or autonomous roadway shuttle operations, but did not believe that this
                would benefit NTD stakeholders. The FTA welcomes comments, however, on
                whether it should reconsider creating a separate mode for autonomous
                vehicles, rather than simply recording autonomous vehicles on the asset
                inventory. Currently, autonomous rail vehicles, commonly called
                ``people movers'' are classified in the monorail/automated guideway
                (mode ``MG'') mode within the NTD. This mode also includes the
                Morgantown (West Virginia) personal rapid transit system as well as the
                Seattle Monorail System, which does not operate autonomously. A transit
                agency deploying an autonomous train in the future would classify those
                operations in the relevant mode, e.g. the heavy rail (mode ``HR'')
                mode. Likewise, under current policy, a transit system operating an
                autonomous roadway vehicle with a fixed route would generally be
                classified in the existing bus (mode ``MB'') mode. The FTA currently
                proposes to only collect whether autonomous vehicles capable of level 4
                operations are in the fleet, and seeks comment on whether it should
                begin collecting data on the duration of autonomous operations either
                within the various existing modes, or as one more separate mode.
                b. New Reporting on Safety Equipment on Rail Transit Vehicles
                 The FTA proposes the collection of the following new data elements
                on the A-30 Revenue Vehicle Inventory form for rail transit vehicle
                types, unless otherwise specified below:
                 A. Number of fleet vehicles with event data recorders based on IEEE
                1482.1 standard;
                 B. Number of fleet vehicles with emergency Lighting System Design
                based on APTA RT-S-VIM-20-10 standard;
                 C. Number of fleet vehicles with emergency signage based on APTA
                RT-S-VIM-021-10 standard;
                 D. Number of fleet vehicles with low-location Emergency Path
                Marking based on APTA RT-S-VIM-022-10 standard.
                 These safety equipment standards are identified for inclusion in
                the National Safety Program Plan requirements of the MAP-21 and FAST
                Act legislation. As such, they are also included in FTA's National
                Safety Plan. These standards also address National Transportation
                Safety Board (NTSB) open recommendations to FTA. The FTA would use this
                additional data to assess industry risk levels and to inform accident
                investigations.
                 This new reporting would apply to all rail transit vehicle types.
                The FTA currently recognizes 11 rail transit vehicle types: Automated
                guideway vehicle (AG); cable car (CC); heavy rail passenger car (HR);
                light rail vehicle (LR); inclined plane vehicle (IP); monorail/
                automated guideway (MO); commuter rail locomotive (RL); commuter rail
                passenger coach (RP); commuter rail, self-propelled passenger car (RS);
                streetcar (SR) and, vintage trolley (VT).
                 The FTA estimates that the burden to report this information is
                minimal, as FTA believes that rail fleet maintenance departments
                already track this information as part of their overall maintenance
                programs. The FTA welcomes comments on whether reporting these data for
                rail fleets would in fact be a de minimis burden. The FTA emphasizes
                that it is not proposing to collect these data for roadway vehicle
                fleets.
                D. Changes to the A-20--Adjust the Reporting Categories for Special
                Trackwork
                 In report year 2018, transit agencies must begin reporting expanded
                asset data to the NTD. The new asset forms were open in the NTD system
                for
                [[Page 14192]]
                optional reporting in report year 2017. Approximately 14% of rail
                agencies reported their track and guideway assets on a voluntary basis
                in the optional reporting year.
                 After completing the optional report year, FTA received several
                requests from rail agencies to change the special track work categories
                available on the A-20 form. Agencies felt the current categories did
                not allow them to properly report their special trackwork to the NTD.
                In response to these requests, FTA is proposing to remove one category,
                add three new categories, and rename an existing category.
                 The A-20 form currently collects the following special track work
                categories: Half grand union, single turnout, single crossover, and
                double diamond crossover. The FTA is proposing the following
                modifications (1) remove half grand union, (2) rename double diamond
                crossover to double crossover, and (3) include three new special track
                work categories: Slip switch, lapped turnout, and rail crossing.
                 Proposed definitions and illustrations of the proposed category
                changes can be viewed on the NTD website at https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/ntd-asset-inventory-module.
                E. Reporting on the Use of Automatic Passenger Counters
                 The FTA is proposing the inclusion of a new data element on the D-
                10 CEO Certification form to collect information on the use of
                Automatic Passenger Counters (APC). The proposed reporting would be
                yes/no selection inquiring whether agencies currently use APC equipment
                on their transit fleet. Reporters using APC equipment to report
                ridership and passenger miles travelled information to the NTD are
                currently required to certify their equipment with the FTA once every 3
                years. The FTA is also proposing a new data field on the D-10 to record
                the date of the agency's last APC certification approval. This field
                would be populated by the FTA for record keeping and would not require
                additional data input from the reporter.
                F. New Reporting on Vehicle Revenue Miles by State for Urbanized Area
                Reporters
                 The FTA receives frequent requests from policy makers to identify
                the amount of transit service provided in each state. NTD currently
                collects the breakdown of vehicle revenue miles (VRM) provided in each
                state for rural agencies operating across state lines. However, urban
                reporters that operate in two or more states do not provide the same
                breakdown. The FTA is proposing an amendment to the FFA-10 that would
                allow reporters to provide their VRM to allocate their VRM by mode and
                state on the FFA-10.
                G. Changes to Safety Event Reporting
                a. Clarification of Reportable Attempted Suicides
                 The FTA has identified inconsistencies in the way agencies report
                an attempted suicide to the NTD. To improve data quality, FTA is
                providing a clarification of a reportable attempted suicide.
                 Attempted suicides are reported to the NTD as a security event.
                Current guidance on how to report this information can be found in the
                2018 Safety Manual located on the NTD website: www.transit.dot.gov/ntd.
                However, if an attempted suicide results in an injury requiring
                immediate medical transport away from the transit property, it is
                reportable as a major event.
                 In some cases, an agency is reporting an incident as an attempted
                suicide when an individual notifies transit personnel that they are
                having suicidal thoughts and medical personnel are called to assist the
                individual. The majority of reporters, however, are not reporting this
                type of incident to the NTD as an attempted suicide. This difference in
                understanding leads to discrepancies in the data reported to the NTD.
                 To address these differing interpretations, FTA proposes the
                following definition of attempted suicide: Self-inflicted harm where
                death does not occur, but the intention of the person was to cause a
                fatal outcome. The attempt and intent must be accounted for by a third
                party in the form of police reports, security personnel reports, or
                other eyewitness statements.
                 The FTA further proposes including the following reporting note to
                the 2019 Safety and Security reporting manual to clarify the proposed
                definition: If there was no documented suicide attempt and the
                individual was transported only for a mental health evaluation, the
                event is to be reported on the Non-Major Monthly Summary report.
                b. Modify Data Collection on Vehicles Involved in Reportable Safety
                Events
                 The NTD currently captures detailed reports for major safety
                events--events that meet one or more of FTA's major reporting
                thresholds. Data collected include information about the impacts of the
                event (injuries, fatalities, damages), the conditions at the time of
                the event, and the specifics of the vehicles involved (speed, action,
                manufacturer).
                 The NTD also captures detailed asset data for each agency's vehicle
                fleets through the annual reporting process. These fleet records
                include details on vehicle length, fuel type, age, manufacturer, and
                more.
                 Although both streams of data are available in the NTD, these two
                data sets (major safety events and vehicle fleets) are not currently
                linked in the system. This means that a data user cannot identify the
                vehicle fleet information for a vehicle involved in a major safety
                event.
                 The current data structure limits FTA's and the industry's ability
                to identify safety concerns, assess risk, and develop and monitor
                mitigations. To improve the usability of the NTD data, FTA proposes
                modifying the NTD's safety event forms to require reporters to identify
                the vehicle fleet information from their annual report through a menu
                of their active fleets.
                 FTA anticipates that this change will reduce reporting burden. By
                linking the existing vehicle inventory to the safety forms, agencies
                will no longer have to enter redundant information on a vehicle
                involved in a safety event. They will now be able to select the fleet
                from a drop-down menu and all data will be autopopulated from their
                inventory to the safety form. This change would be applicable to all
                major events involving a revenue vehicle.
                c. Add Information on Drug and Alcohol Post-Accident Testing
                 The NTD does not currently capture information on whether a major
                incident required drug and alcohol post-accident testing per 49 CFR
                655.44--Post-accident testing. It would be useful for both the FTA and/
                or State Safety Oversight Agencies to track this information at the
                incident level to support accident investigations and evaluate agency
                compliance with this requirement.
                 The FTA proposes including the following questions to all NTD major
                event reporting: (1) Was FTA Drug and Alcohol Post-Accident Testing
                required? If agencies answer yes to the first question, they will be
                prompted to answer the second question: (2) Was FTA Drug and Alcohol
                Post-Accident Testing completed? Agencies would provide answers to each
                question via a yes/no check box.
                 The estimated burden to report this information to the NTD is
                minimal as agencies already have obligations regarding documenting
                post-accident testing and providing records to FTA upon request.
                [[Page 14193]]
                H. Clarification on Reporting a Temporary Bus Bridge Service
                Information
                 The FTA has received a request to clarify when mode-level service
                is reportable for a temporary bus bridge. Several agencies have
                expressed a concern that the cost of tracking the detailed information
                necessary to report a temporary bus bridge as a new mode to the NTD
                outweighs the benefits of the potential funds generated through the FTA
                formula apportionment programs from these temporary services.
                 The FTA proposes the following clarification: In cases where a
                temporary bus bridge, using a new mode or type of service, is put into
                place in response to a capital project or emergency repair, the
                reporting agency is not required to create a new mode in the NTD
                reporting system to report service and financial information to NTD. In
                these cases, the cost of the service should be reported in the
                appropriate operating cost functions (if due to an emergency situation)
                or capital costs functions (if due to a capital project).
                 If grantees would like to receive credit for the service provided
                by a temporary bus bridge using a new mode in the FTA formula
                apportionment programs, the grantee may opt to create a new mode in the
                NTD. Service provided via a bus bridge for a rail mode is not
                reportable to the NTD under the rail mode. Reporters may not include
                the vehicle revenue miles, vehicle revenue hours, unlinked passenger
                trips, and passenger miles from the temporary bus bridge in their
                reported rail mode. They must create a new mode to report this service
                to the NTD.
                 Agencies implementing a temporary bus bridge through an existing
                mode (i.e., a mode they currently report to the NTD) should report the
                temporary bus bridge cost and service information to the NTD as part of
                their existing mode reporting.
                I. Clarification of Incidental Use for Transit Asset Reporting
                 The FTA has begun collecting additional information on transit
                assets in report year 2018. Current guidance for reporting inventory
                and condition information on administrative and maintenance facilities
                states that an agency must report detailed asset and condition
                information if they have capital replacement responsibility, with an
                exemption for facilities where the use by transit providers is
                considered incidental. An example of this type of arrangement would be
                a city department of transportation that uses a single office or small
                suite within a large city hall building or a county-owned maintenance
                facility that services a large number of county maintenance vehicles
                including a very small number of vehicles used for transit. In these
                instances, FTA would consider the transit provider's use of the
                facility to be incidental and would not require reporting of inventory
                or condition information to the NTD.
                 NTD reporters have asked for a clarification of the term incidental
                use for the purposes of reporting. The FTA seeks comment on its
                proposal to clarify that incidental use applies when 50 percent or less
                of the facility's physical space is dedicated to the provision of
                public transportation service.
                J. Allow for Separate Mode Reporting for Geographically and Resource
                Separated Modes
                 In a few cases, a transit agency may run two geographically and/or
                resource separated services that share the same mode. For example, an
                agency might run two light rail systems that are physically located on
                opposite sides of the state and have a separate vehicle fleet and
                workforce. Under current NTD reporting guidance, these services would
                be reported as a single mode if they are run by a single agency. Thus,
                despite the fact that they are geographically separated and do not
                share resources, their financial and service data is captured in the
                NTD in a single mode.
                 The intent of collecting NTD data by mode and type of service is to
                provide a clear presentation of the resources necessary to run a single
                mode of service. The current data structure obscures this presentation
                for systems that run two geographically and resource separated
                services. Combining this information in the data set reduces the
                usability of the data for stakeholders.
                 The FTA proposes requiring agencies with geographically or resource
                separated modes of service to report them as two separate modes in the
                NTD. Under this requirement, agencies would report the financial,
                service, and asset information separately to the NTD rather than
                combining the information to report as a single mode. The FTA
                anticipates that the additional reporting burden of this proposal would
                be small, as FTA is only aware of one case where two resource-separated
                services are not already being reported separately. Reporters currently
                maintain separate internal records for resource-separated services, so
                this proposal would allow grantees to report to the NTD in a way that
                more closely matches their internal records.
                K. Clarification on Commuter Service Survey Standards
                 Current FTA policy requires an agency to provide a passenger survey
                of new commuter service to the NTD to establish that it meets the
                criteria for reportable commuter rail, bus, or ferry service. The FTA
                considers service to be commuter service if at least 50 percent of
                passengers make a return trip on the same day across all service runs
                for one year. The FTA proposes to update this policy so that the survey
                must meet the following criteria:
                 1. The agency must conduct the survey over a 12-month period, to
                account for seasonal variations in passenger behavior.
                 2. The agency must include the entire length of each route in the
                survey, including all times of day, and all days of the year.
                 3. If sampling by passengers, each passenger for the entire year
                must be given an equal chance of selection. If sampling by vehicle
                operations, each vehicle operation for the entire year must be given an
                equal chance of selection, weighted by the anticipated passenger count
                on each vehicle. If any other strata are used in the sample design,
                each strata must meet FTA's requirements.
                 4. For the purpose of calculating return trips, a passenger making
                a single round trip in a given day cannot be surveyed twice for
                inclusion in the final calculation. The calculation establishing
                whether 50 percent of riders make a same-day round trip must be
                calculated as: (total unique passengers making same-day return trip)/
                ((total unique passengers making same-day return trip) + (total unique
                passengers making an overnight trip)).
                 5. A person may be counted as making a same-day return trip if the
                person makes one leg of the trip by another means of transportation.
                 6. The survey must determine that at least 50 percent of passengers
                on each route make a return trip on the same day, with 95 percent
                confidence.
                 7. A qualified statistician must approve the survey methodology,
                the sample size, and the sampling methodology and certify that the
                results give the required level of confidence.
                 If at least 50 percent of all passengers surveyed on a route made a
                return trip on the same day, or reported their intention to do so, then
                FTA will permit the agency to report that route to the NTD as a
                commuter service.
                 Eligible commuter service is fully attributable to an urbanized
                area if at least 50 percent of passengers are making a return trip on
                the same day.
                [[Page 14194]]
                If the service does not meet this threshold, it would be considered
                intercity service. On intercity ferry and rail services that meet the
                definition of public transportation, all portions of the service
                located outside the boundaries of the urbanized area would be
                attributable at a rate of 27 percent per 49 U.S.C. 5336.
                L. Clarification on Reporting Linear Miles and Track Miles to the Asset
                Inventory
                 The guidance published with the final reporting requirements for
                guideway infrastructure did not clearly state definitions and reporting
                requirements for linear miles and track miles. The FTA proposes the
                following definitions of linear miles and track miles as referenced in
                the NTD Policy Manual. Linear miles is defined as ``the length in miles
                of the route path of track--regardless of multiple track railways over
                the same area'' and track miles is defined as the ``cumulative length
                in miles of all track--including multiple track railways over the same
                area. This should represent the total length of all laid track.''
                 Earlier guidance appeared to imply that agencies must report both
                linear miles and track miles for guideway infrastructure. The FTA
                proposes to clarify that agencies may report either linear miles, or
                track miles, or both for the purposes of asset condition and
                performance reporting of guideway infrastructure to the NTD.
                M. Clarification on Rural Financial Data Reporting Requirement
                 The updated Uniform System of Accounts (USOA), effective beginning
                Fiscal Year 2018, states that to report the total costs of delivering
                each mode of transit service, transit agencies must calculate both
                direct and shared costs of providing service. Agencies may continue to
                allocate shared costs based on approved cost allocation methods. This
                is consistent with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
                 The FTA clarifies that recipients of Rural Area Formula Program (49
                U.S.C. 5311) funding must report operating expenses and fare revenues
                by mode and type of service. State DOT recipients must report this data
                for each Section 5311 subrecipient beginning in Fiscal Year 2019.
                 Issued in Washington, DC.
                K. Jane Williams,
                Acting Administrator.
                [FR Doc. 2019-06943 Filed 4-8-19; 8:45 am]
                 BILLING CODE 4910-57-P
                

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