The changes in geography, commodities and modes in the 2012 CFS and their impacts on FAF4 in comparison to historical FAF data series are briefly discussed below. 

3.1 CFS GEOGRAPHY

3.1.1 Domestic Regions

The CFS Areas are the smallest level of geographic detail for which the CFS produces estimates. The 2012 CFS contains 132 domestic areas¹.  There are 10 new CFS Areas in 2012, as identified in Table 3–1 .  Because all counties in the state of New Jersey are covered by 2012 CFS Areas, there is no longer a need for the “Remainder of NJ” area.  Thus, the total net count for 2012 CFS Areas is 132, an increase of nine over the 2007 CFS.

Table 3–1 .  List of the New Areas for the 2012 CFS

In addition to new CFS Areas, boundaries of many CFS Areas are also different from their corresponding 2007 CFS Areas.  Figure 3–1 shows the boundaries for all regions in FAF3 (2007 CFS based) and FAF4 (2012 CFS based).  New 2012 CFS Areas are shown as yellow-shaded regions; green-shaded areas represent FAF3 area boundaries, and red lines marks boundaries of FAF4 regions. Clearly, the creation of new areas (shown in yellow) affected the geographic boundary of their corresponding “remainder of state” areas.  A crosswalk of the CFS area code and FAF4 zone ID is provided in Appendix A.

Geographic boundary differences in many CFS Areas between 2007 (FAF3) and 2012 (FAF4) are seen Figure 3–1 .  These differences are due to MSA/CSA boundary changes over the 5-year period from 2007 to 2012, which is mostly a reflection of changes in regional population or economic activity patterns during such time.  Due to changes in geographic boundaries of FAF regions, only state-level 1997-2002-2007 data will be produced with state-level FAF4 for historical trending comparison purposes.

Figure 3–1 .  Comparison of FAF4 to FAF3 regions.

3.1.2 Foreign Regions

There are no changes to foreign region definitions in FAF4 from FAF3.  The foreign regions are:

1. Canada
2. Mexico
3. Rest of Americas (including Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Island)
4. Europe
5. Africa
6. Southern, Central, and Western Asia
7. Eastern Asia
8. South-Eastern Asia and Oceania
   
    

3.2 CHANGES TO COMMODITY CLASSIFICATION CODES

3.2.1 Reclassification of Ethanol as Fuel

One of the major changes made in the 2012 Standard Classification of Transported Goods (SCTG) was to separate fuel ethanol from alcoholic beverages.  Specifically, the 2007 SCTG code of 08310 “Denatured ethyl alcohol, and un-denatured ethyl alcohol that is 80% or more alcohol by volume” was revised in the 2012 version as “Spirituous beverages and ethyl alcohol – Un-denatured ethyl alcohol that is 80% or more alcohol by volume.”  Two new codes were created (08410 and 08420) for “Denatured ethyl alcohol, not for human consumption,” which specified the exclusion of “ethanol for use as biofuel” from the SCTG 08.  Because of this modification, new SCTG codes were created under SCTG17, including:

• SCTG 17500 for “Alcohol and gasoline blends with more than 10% alcohol volume (includes E15, E20, E25, E70, E75, E85) and other blends of ethanol not elsewhere classified “ and
• SCTG 17600 for “Ethanol, anhydrous ethanol (E100) denatured, and other denatured alcohols for use in blends of biofuel” 

At the 2-digit SCTG level (as used in FAF), fuel ethanol is now classified under SCTG 17 (Gasoline, aviation turbine fuel and ethanol) and is no longer included in SCTG 08 (Alcoholic beverages and denatured alcohol).

3.2.2 Changes in Kerosene and Biofuel Related Commodity Codes

Previously, kerosene was listed under SCTG 19 “Other coal and petroleum products.”  Under the 2012 SCTG definition, it was reclassified into SCTG 17.  Specifically, kerosene was changed from 2007 SCTG code of 19201 to the new code of 17202 “Kerosene for heating and uses other than aviation fuel” in the 2012 version of SCTG. This change aligns kerosene better with similar fuels.

To accommodate recent developments in biofuels, the 2007 SCTG code of 18000 was modified as “Fuel Oils (includes Diesel, Bunker C, and Biodiesel)” and is further broken down to subcategories as listed in Table 3–2 .

Table 3–2 .  New SCTG 18 Categories in the 2012 Release of SCTG Definitions

3.2.3 Potential Effects of the SCTG Code Changes on FAF

The classifications of commodities for FAF4 allow better distinctions between fuel ethanol shipments and movements of alcohol beverages, and properly assign all kerosene flows into movements of fuels.  These changes have effects on the FAF4 matrix.

First, a modified crosswalk table between the new SCTG and other commodity coding schemes, such as Harmonized System (HS) Codes and Standard Transportation Commodity Codes (STCC) had to be reestablished.  The HS-SCTG crosswalk table is particularly crucial to the proper assignment of commodities during the process of foreign trade data (imports and exports). 

A more challenging issue that FAF4 will have to resolve is the comparability with previous FAF datasets.  Since FAF is designed based on published CFS data, its commodity detail is limited to 2-digit level SCTG codes.  In order to generate compatible FAF data series for trending analysis, information (on shares/percentages or factors) to properly adjust prior FAF data will be used.

3.3 CHANGES IN CFS MODE CLASSIFICATION

Changes were also made to reassign shipments with “unknown” mode to other specific modes during the 2012 CFS mileage calculation processing.  A shipment with an unknown mode was reassigned to truck mode if it was less than 2 truckloads or 80 thousand pounds; otherwise, it was assigned to rail.  Furthermore, under the 2012 CFS processing, shipments of 150 pounds or more were reassigned to truck mode (for-hire truck), resulting in the shipments shifting out of the “Multiple Modes and Mail” category in FAF.  Therefore, corresponding mode adjustments would be necessary for comparisons across different versions of FAF databases.  Other than that, the 2012 CFS definitions of transportation modes are used in the FAF4.  These modes, as described under the FAF4 context, are listed below, along with their corresponding codes:

1. Truck – Includes private and for-hire trucks.  Private trucks are owned or operated by shippers, and exclude personal use vehicles hauling over-the-counter purchases from retail establishments.
2. Rail – Includes any common carrier or private railroad.
3. Water – Includes shallow draft, deep draft, Great Lakes shipments, and shipments operating over any combination of water modes.
4. Air (includes truck-air) – Includes shipments that are moved by air or a combination of truck and air in a commercial or private aircraft; includes airfreight and air-express. 
5. Multiple Modes and Mail – Includes intermodal shipments, shipments by multiple modes, and shipments by parcel delivery services, U.S. Postal Service, and couriers; excludes shipments typically weighing more than 150 pounds that move by a combination of truck and air.  This category is not limited to containerized or trailer-on-flatcar shipments.
6. Pipeline – Includes flows from offshore wells to land.
7. Unknown or Other – This mode is mostly conveyor belts.

Note that, even though there was no longer an “unknown” mode in the 2012 CFS data, the corresponding FAF4 has retained the “unknown or other” mode category (mode code 7) as in previous versions of FAF. 

¹ Commodity Flow Survey, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. DOT, https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/commodity_flow_survey/index.