Supporting_Statement_2011[2]

OMB SUPPORTING STATEMENT

Heavy Vehicle Travel Information System

The purpose of this document is to request OMB’s three-year extension for a currently approved information collection titled, “Heavy Vehicle Travel Information System (HVTIS),”

covered by OMB Control No. 2125-0587. This information collection is due to expire on March 31, 2011.

Part A. Justification

1. Circumstances that make the collection of information necessary.

The reports and procedures outlined in the attached “Heavy Vehicle Travel Information System Field Manual” are authorized under 23 U.S.C. 315 which places the responsibility on the Secretary of Transportation for management decisions which affect transportation. Title 49, U.S.C. Sec. 301, authorizes the DOT to collect statistical information relevant to domestic transportation. In addition, 23 CFR 1.5 and 49 CFR 1.48 provide the Federal Highway Administrator with authority to request such information deemed necessary to administer the Federal-aid highway program. Data will be used for assessing highway system performance under FHWA’s strategic planning and performance reporting process in accordance with requirement of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA, Sections 3 and 4) Finally, 23 CFR 420.105(b) requires States to provide data that support FHWA’s responsibilities to the Congress and the public.

Discussions with various State DOT representatives indicated their interest in providing data for development of the truck travel trends on a monthly basis.

The data from this system will be used to analyze the amount and nature of truck travel at the national and regional level. The information will be used by FHWA and other DOT administrations to evaluate changes in truck travel in order to assess impacts on highway safety; the role of travel in economic productivity; impacts of changes in truck travel on infrastructure condition; and maintaining our mobility while protecting the human and natural environment. The increasing dependence on truck transport requires that data be available to better assess its overall contribution to the Nation’s well-being. The data will allow transportation professionals at the Federal, state and metropolitan levels to make informed decisions about policies and plans.

Travel monitoring and the monitoring of truck travel in particular are important activities responsive to management accountability essential in determining:

• The effectiveness of current highway programs in supporting travel demands,

• The merits of possible modifications to such programs, and

• The need for new programs.

• This information collection supports the DOT Strategic Goals of:

• Safety by providing more accurate and detailed exposure information related to truck travel and especially the concurrent travel of lighter vehicles in the same traffic stream

• Mobility by providing data on the relative usage of system capacity by trucks by time of day and the associated share of congestion that may be implicit in such travel

• Productivity by providing data necessary to estimate the tonnage being moved by time of day, and season of the year over the various highway systems and

• Human and Natural Environment by providing information on the activity patterns of trucks and the associated mobile source emissions.

2. How, by whom, and for what purpose is the information used.

The data would be included in the HVTIS that is being developed to analyze the amount and nature of truck travel at the national and regional levels and how truck travel compares to travel by other types of vehicles. In addition, the data will provide information about how truck activity changes from season to season or on a daily basis. A major objective of the HVTIS is to support analysis of truck activity in terms of economic and seasonal cycles. The vehicle weight and vehicle travel data collected as part of the HVTIS are used for a wide variety of purposes by various levels of government, institutions of higher learning, industry, consultants, professional organizations, and the general public. Data are used for pavement design, development of policies for permitting of overweight vehicles, designation of truck routes, estimating trends in freight movement, as input to noise and air pollution studies, pavement design, cost allocation, assessing safety implications of various mixes of vehicles, developing estimates of average daily traffic, signal timing, estimating highway revenues and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of highway improvements.

Although the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) provides the official estimate of the Nation’s highway travel for a reporting year, the HVTIS will provide an interim estimate six months earlier than that available from the HPMS. This early HVTIS estimate is essential to supporting the FHWA strategic plan. By conducting the new data collection, the FHWA will be requesting that the various State Transportation Departments (State DOTs) provide periodic reporting of vehicle classification and weight data they collect as part of their existing traffic data collection programs.

The HVTIS will be a central source of information on truck travel activity at the national level and will support the development of monthly and annual estimates of this travel at both the national scale as well as for major highway systems. When combined with weight data, we will have a major tool to better estimate the rate of pavement deterioration and thereby will be better able to anticipate needed infrastructure investments.

3. Extent of automated information collection.

All data for the HVTIS will be submitted electronically to the FHWA by all State highway agencies. Reliance on electronic reporting is responsive to limited staff resources at both the State and Federal levels. With the large data file requirements of the HVTIS, electronic submission is a necessity.

The collected data will be keyed to Geographical Information System data in order to support the analysis of point specific heavy vehicle travel data on a system-wide network basis. This is expected to allow:

• Correlation of pavement loadings generated by heavy vehicles to data in other FHWA systems that report pavement condition;

• Major truck corridors will be more readily identified from among the links comprising the Nation’s highway network, and;

• Weather, natural disaster and other geographically related phenomena can be more readily related to associated changes in truck travel patterns

All data summarization, processing, and editing will be fully automated. The HVTIS is supported by various software packages for use by the States and FHWA staff in order to report edit and summarize the collected data.

4. Efforts to identify duplication.

In the process of planning the HVTIS, other alternative sources of truck travel and activity information were identified: the Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey (VIUS) formerly conducted by the Bureau of the Census, FHWA’s Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program and the HPMS which is also managed by FHWA.

The Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey provided data on the physical and operational characteristics of the Nation’s truck population. The sample was reported on the basis of the State of a vehicle’s registration. As a result the data were valuable in providing national level aggregations of data but did not provide information on where a vehicle operated. The data were refreshed on a five-year cycle and therefore did not provide a method of relating truck activity to short-term economic conditions. The Bureau of the Census has announced they will no longer conduct the Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey.

Vehicle classification and weight data are available from the LTPP program. The LTPP program focused on a limited number of highway sections selected to complement the measurement of pavement performance under various traffic, geographic and weather conditions. In addition, although the vehicle classification data represents all lanes of travel at each site, the vehicle weight data are representative of only one lane. While the data from the LTPP program can be used as part of the HVTIS effort, it is too limited to provide national estimates of travel and loadings.

Vehicle classification data are available as part of the HPMS annual submission. The HPMS provides both system level and sample level estimates of truck activity. Both sources are limited to providing annual estimates of average truck activity. They do not provide information on how truck activity changes from season to season or on a diurnal basis. A major objective of the HVTIS is to support analysis of truck activity in terms of economic and seasonal cycles.

5. Efforts to minimize the burden on small businesses.

The collection of this information does not impact small businesses.

6. Impact of less frequent collection of information.

It is essential that heavy truck travel data be collected on a monthly basis. Research has indicated that truck travel from day-to-day and by season of the year is highly variable and only short term data collections can properly capture these patterns. Similarly, only a monthly frequency of reporting will allow the cost-effective development of relationships of travel sensitivity to changes in fuel prices, weather, interest rate changes, or disruptions to service on competing modes. Because research has shown vehicle weights tend to be relatively stable for a particular class of vehicle, annual reporting of vehicle weights will be sufficient to impute tonnage movements by month.

Without the requested data, FHWA will not be able to provide trend information on heavy vehicle travel in order support the Government Performance and Results Act as responded to by the FHWA strategic plan which requires the timely availability of truck travel information for assessing changes in crash rates. Of the various characteristics of, and impacts on, the highway infrastructure, travel and composition of the traffic stream are the most dynamic. The ability to better manage infrastructure assets requires that we have near-term monthly information on truck activity.

7. Special circumstances.

There are no special circumstances associated with this information collection.

8. Compliance with 5 CFR 1320.8.

The FHWA published a Federal Register notice on July 22, 2010, which solicited public comments about our intention to obtain approval for this new information collection. No comments were received. [Federal Register: (Volume 75, Number 140)] [Page 42816-42817]

9. Payments or gifts to respondents.

There will be no payments or gifts to respondents.

10. Assurance of confidentiality.

No confidential information will be collected; therefore, no assurances of confidentiality will be provided.

11. Justification for collection of sensitive information.

There are no questions that would commonly be considered sensitive.

12. Estimate of burden hours for information requested.

Data Type	Reportings per Year per Site	Average Hours per Response	Hours per Year per State
Site Description	1	4	4
Vehicle Classification	12	2	24
Truck Weight	1	2	2
Total Volume	12	1.5	18
Total Hours per State per Year			48

FHWA estimates that the average State DOT operates 40 continuous vehicle classification installations, an additional 10 sites that provide continuous traffic volume data, and 10 weigh-in-motion sites. In accordance with 23 U.S.C. 303, each State has a Traffic Monitoring System in place so the data collection burden relevant for this notice is the additional burden for each State to provide a copy of their traffic data using the record formats specified in the Traffic Monitoring Guide. Automation and online tools continue to be developed in support of the HVTIS and the capability now exists for online submission and validation of total volume data. The combined burden for the monthly and annual reports is estimated to be 48 hours per respondent. The estimated total burden for all States the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico is 2,496 hours.

Salary costs associated with burden hours are estimated at an average of $35.50 per hour for the technical specialists dealing with the HVTIS data types. The hourly rate is taken from Table 452 of the 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States Census Bureau. These costs are calculated as follows: $ 35.50 x 2,496 hours = $ 88,608.

13. Estimate of total annual costs to respondents.

Other than salary costs in Item 12 above, there are no costs to respondents to provide this information.

14. Estimate of costs to the Federal government.

The estimated annual cost to the Federal government for the HVTIS data collection is $169,529, which is calculated as follows:

2 FHWA Headquarters staff x 2,000 hours each @ $38.04 per hour =	$152,160
51 FHWA field office staff x 2 hours each @ $32.08 per hour =	$3,272
Subtotal	$155,432
plus overhead @ 20 percent	$31,086
TOTAL	$186,518

The printing cost for the various reports and publications associated with the HVTIS are covered in the existing OMB clearance for the Guide to Reporting Highway Statistics, OMB control number 2125-0032.

15. Explanation of program changes or adjustments.

There are no program changes.

16. Publication of results of data collection.

It is planned that various reports will be based on the HVTIS. These reports include a monthly estimate of truck travel and an annual estimate of truck travel as related to truck registrations and associated fuel use. Analysis of weight data will be available as output from software supporting the HVTIS.

17. Approval for not displaying the expiration date of OMB approval.

Approval for not displaying the expiration date is not sought.

18. Exceptions to certification statement.

There are no exceptions to the certification statement.

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