Survey of Stakeholders Supporting Part B

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION

SUPPORTING STATEMENT – PART B

Survey of FTA Stakeholders

(OMB Control No. 2132-0564)

B. Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods

1. Universe and respondent selection

● Target population: FTA’s grantees, which include local governments, transit

agencies, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, State agencies, tribal governments

and eligible non-profit organizations.

● There are approximately 1,500 grantees in the target population. FTA believes it is

important to provide the opportunity for each grantee to complete the survey to provide

feedback on customer service; therefore, FTA does not intend to use a smaller

sample size.

● FTA does intend to stratify grantees based on size, type of organization and

geographical location based on the ten standard federal regions that FTA Regional

Offices have as their service territories and any Headquarters Offices that administer

grants and provide services. We want to keep the stratification to a minimum so that

grantees can preserve their anonymity and provide candid responses on their

perception of FTA’s customer service.

● The goal is at least a 60% participation rate.

2. Procedures for collecting information

● The survey will be conducted using an Internet survey and software that will tabulate

the responses by question and by Regional or Headquarters Offices as a whole.

. Summary data will be provided in chart and/or graphical presentation to show the rating

for each question. The plan is to conduct the survey annually to analyze trends in

customer service for each office and FTA as a whole. The survey will be sent by an

electronic mail message seeking participation in order to improve FTA’s customer

service with a hyperlink to the Internet site that hosts the survey.

3. Methods to maximize response

• The response rates were 52 percent in 2008 and 46 percent in 2020. FTA has set a goal to attain at least a 60% survey response rate. The Internet software will establish a deadline for response and will be programmed to send one or two reminders to encourage participation. There likely will be a general FTA announcement to grantees to preview the upcoming survey cycle, identify the purpose of the survey and request cooperation of the respondents. FTA does not intend to offer any special incentives although there will be considerable outreach by Regional Offices and announcements from the Headquarters Office regarding the importance of good participation by our grantees. The stakeholder organizations and industry associations will also be asked to publicize the survey. FTA expects good reliability of the data since the survey will be sent to agency general managers and the questions are straightforward and do not require any computations or specialized data entry.

4. Tests of procedures

• A small group of eight transit agencies was asked to review the survey to insure that the questions were appropriate and relevant to FTA services provided and not burdensome to the agency to respond. FTA did not intend for this small sample size of grantees to actually take the survey, but they did provide feedback on the robustness of the customer service questions posed.

5. Contacts for statistical aspects and data collection

● Mazhar Awan, FTA Office of Budget and Policy, telephone 202-366-1399,

[email protected]

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