Waybill Sample - Supporting Statement-3-2014

OMB Control No. 2140-0015
Expires March 31, 2014
Supporting Statement for
Waybill Sample

A. Justification
1. Need for Information
The Surface Transportation Board is statutorily responsible for the economic regulation
of common carrier railroads operating in the United States. Some of the information the Board
uses to carry out its responsibilities comes from rail-carload waybills. A carload waybill, which
is a document describing the characteristics of an individual rail shipment, identifies originating
and terminating freight stations, the names of all railroads participating in the movement, the
points of all railroad interchanges, the number of cars, the car types, the movement weight in
hundredweight, the commodity, and the freight revenue. Under 49 C.F.R. pt. 1244, a railroad is
required to file carload-waybill-sample information (Waybill Sample) for all line-haul revenue
waybills terminating on its lines if, in any of the three preceding years, it terminated 4500 or
more carloads, or it terminated at least 5% of the total revenue carloads that terminate in a
particular state. The Waybill Sample is the Board’s primary means of gathering information
about freight rail shipments terminated in the United States. The Board has authority to collect
this information under 49 U.S.C. §§ 11144, 11145.
To address the previous terms of clearance (3/17/11), the Board clarifies that a final rule
has not been issued in Ex Parte No. 385 (Sub-No. 7), which concerns reporting of rail
movements of certain hazardous materials. Therefore, the STB is not seeking approval of a
modification to this collection in this request. The STB will address comments regarding the
modification proposed in its 2011 proposed rule prior to publication of any final rule modifying
this collection.
2. Use of Data Collected
The information in the Waybill Sample is used by the Board, other Federal agencies (the
Department of Transportation and the Department of Agriculture, for example), and industry
stakeholders to monitor traffic flows and rate trends in the industry, and to develop evidence in
Board proceedings. The Waybill Sample is also a major source of information for states
developing state transportation plans. In addition, non-government groups seek access to
Waybill Sample data for such uses as market surveys, forecasts of rail-equipment requirements,
economic analyses and forecasts, and academic research.
3. Reduction Through Improved Technology
Respondents may report electronically, and the vast majority of respondents do so.
Currently, electronic filers submit flat text files to the Board through an STB contractor, using

the FTP or MQ protocol. The instructions for the Waybill Sample—“Procedure for Sampling
Waybill Records by Computer”–are available on the Board’s website at <
http://www.stb.dot.gov/stb/industry/econ_waybill.html> Respondents may also contact Paul
Aguiar by phone at (202) 245-0323 or email at [email protected]. to get instructions
for submitting the Waybill Sample electronically or in paper hard copy.
4. Identification of Duplication
This information is not duplicated by any other agency. The Board is the only source of
waybill information.
5. Minimizing Burden for Small Businesses
The Board requires a railroad to submit a statistical sample of the waybills for the traffic
it handles only if, in any of the three preceding years, it terminated 4500 or more carloads, or it
terminated at least 5% of the total revenue carloads that terminate in a particular state. In
addition, a carrier need only report quarterly (rather than monthly) if it submits computerized
(rather than paper) Waybill Samples or it submits less than 1,000 waybills per year.
6. Frequency Reduction Consequences
The Waybill Sample may be submitted quarterly. Less frequent collection would impede
the access by government regulators and private stakeholders to timely information about the
industry.
7. Special Circumstances
There are no special circumstances. (Note: Although 49 C.F.R. § 1244.6, states that
railroads submitting computerized Waybill Samples are required to retain copies of the
underlying waybills for four years, that retention period conflicts with the one-year retention
period for waybills provided in § 1220.6. The agency has treated § 1220.6 as controlling in this
matter.)
8. Consultation Outside Agency
As required, the Board provided a 60-day comment period (see 79 Fed. Reg. 2938
(1/16/2014)) and a 30-day comment period (see 79 Fed. Reg. 18412 (4/1/2014)) regarding this
collection.
9. Payment or Gift
No payment or gift is made in connection with this survey form.
10. Assurance of Confidentiality

The Board recognizes that some of the submitted information is commercially sensitive,
and thus the Board’s regulations place limitations on releasing Waybill Sample data. See
49 C.F.R. § 1244.9.
11. Sensitive Information
This form does not collect any sensitive personal information.
12. Estimated Burden Hours
The total burden hours (annually including all respondents) is estimated at 325 hours
(based on 53 respondents, 6 of whom (by their own choice) report monthly and 47 of whom
report quarterly), with an average estimated time per response of 75 minutes. Note that the
burden reported in ROCIS for this collection is only 265 hours because the ROCIS program does
not allow input of data where a small percentage of respondents are reporting monthly by choice.
Therefore, the ROCIS data assumes that all respondents report quarterly.
13. Additional Costs
No “non-hour cost” burdens associated with this collection have been identified.
Waybills are created by rail carriers in the normal course of business. Thus, this collection does
not require additional record keeping.
14. Annualized Cost To the Federal Government
The Board contracts out the collection of the Waybill Sample. The annualized cost of the
contract is $179,373.
15. Changes in Burden Hours.
No changes are sought.
16. Publication of Data and/or Results
Waybill-Sample data, aggregated at the industry level to protect commercially sensitive
information (and referred to as the Public Use Waybill Sample), is available on the Board’s
website, www.stb.dot.gov (under Industry Data/Economic Data/Waybill).
17. Display of Expiration date for OMB approval
The control number for this collection is 2140-0015. The expiration date appears on the
instruction document for the collection, which is posted on the Board’s website.
18. Exceptions to the Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions
No exceptions are sought.

B. Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods
Not Applicable.