Friday, October 19, 2012 - The U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) celebrated its 20th anniversary this week. BTS, a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), was created by legislation in 1991 and formally organized in 1992 as a designated federal statistical agency having the primary purpose of collecting, compiling and disseminating transportation statistics. Among BTS' major accomplishments are an annual report to the President and the Congress on the state of the transportation system; the only nationwide data collection on freight activity by all modes of transportation, the Commodity Flow Survey, every five years; creation of the Transportation Services Index to measure monthly changes in passenger and freight activity; establishment of the National Transportation Library as a repository for research and statistics; and collection of airline data to support the Department's consumer protection programs. BTS Director Patricia Hu supervises 55 federal employees who work on transportation studies, analysis and compilations, survey programs, statistical quality, geospatial information and airline information, and who staff the National Transportation Library

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