• Extensive data are available on local passenger travel, but limited data exists on long-distance travel; conversely, limited data exists on local freight movement, but extensive data exists on long-distance freight movement.
• Extensive data is available on the condition and performance of highways, bridges, airports, and waterway facilities, but little data exists on the condition of privately owned railroads and pipelines.
• Extensive data is available on accidents and air emissions, but limited data exists on noise and other forms of environmental and community disruptions caused by transportation.
• Information is available about transportation’s share of gross domestic product, but there is little knowledge of the impact of transportation on the Nation’s economy and the quality of life for its citizens.
• Alternatives to increasingly expansive surveys, such as the use of administrative records and technology-based monitoring, are needed to develop transportation statistics. The digital revolution presents opportunities and challenges for improving transportation statistics.

The Transportation Statistics Annual Report describes several BTS initiatives to address the key gaps and explore opportunities for better information [USDOT BTS 2013]. Through these and other efforts, BTS will continue to strive toward achieving the vision of Abraham Lincoln who said, in reference to proposed Federal investments in transportation facilities, “Statistics will save us from doing what we do, in wrong places [LINCOLN 1848].”