Release of the CFS Data Explorer

https://cfsdata.bts.gov

Note: This product is considered experimental. Please use with caution. Any issues or feature requests can be sent to cfs@dot.gov

About the Data

• Estimates are derived from the Commodity Flow Survey Tables.
• In cases where variables descriptions are slightly changed between survey years, they have been adjusted to remain comparable between years.
• In the case of average distance per shipment, the 2022 distances are separate from the 2012 and 2017 distance due to a change in the calculation of distance. For the 2012 and 2017 data, the distance was based on GeoMiler software. For 2022 shipments, the distance was calculated using great circle distances. These fields were kept separate to discourage direct comparisons between these values.
• For more information and background information visit the CFS page .
• Full Survey Methodology can be found here: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cfs/technical-documentation.html

Using the Tool

• There are four tables comprising all of the CFS data available.
  • Area - This table provides the most detail on the geographic movements of freight as well as detailed views of commodities.
  • Temperature Control - This is a subset of the Area table that only tabulates data for temperature controlled shipments.
  • Export - This is a subset of the data that only provides data on export shipments. Additional fields related to export shipments are included.
  • Hazmat - This is a subset of the data that only provides data on hazardous material. Additional fields related to hazardous materials are included.
• Not all combinations of variables will produce a table. Please see the "Table Notes:" box for possible reasons.
• If a table cannot be produced, please remove some of the grouping variables by resetting the option to US(total), All (total), or Total.
• Downloads are available. Downloads will produce the entire table, not just the current page and may take some time to download depending on options.

Demonstration of Use

If a user was interested in finding the tons and value of Wood products moving from Arizona to each of the four Census regions in 2017 and 2022, the following selections would be made:

• For Origin select State and select Arizona in the list that appears.
• For Destination select Region
• For Years, select both 2017 and 2022
• Commodity choose select commodity and click on Wood products in the list that appears
• In Calculated Values, select both Tons and Value

All other options can remain the as Total. A table with 8 rows will display below. Most cells in the resulting table are filled but some are filled with an S indicating that an estimate was not published due to quality or confidentiality concerns.

If further details were desired, the user could change the mode option from All to By mode and see the breakdown of these shipments by various modes of transport. Note that as searches become more fine tuned, mode data is suppressed from the tables due to quality or confidentiality concerns.

If the user was also curious about the weight of these shipments they could change the shipment weight option from total to Breakdown. It is can be seen that there are no results at this level. To get information about the shipment weights of Wood products from Arizona, the user would have to relax some of the filtering. In this case, setting the Mode back to total and the Destination to US (total) will produce estimates.

Suggested Citation: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics; and, U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau. (2025-06-26). [enter table name you accessed/downloaded here: Area/Temperature Control/Export/Hazmat] [dataset]. 2022 Commodity Flow Survey. Accessed [enter date you accessed/downloaded this table here] from https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cfs/data/.