Friday, July 27, 2012 - The U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, released the 2012 edition of the National Transportation Atlas Databases (NTAD) this week. The 2012 edition features updated datasets from last year's NTAD. This year's NTAD consists of 32datasets, 16 of which were updated for this 2012 release, including intermodal terminals, national railway crossings, non-attainment areas and transit rail lines and stations, among other data layers. Also, substantial revisions were made to datasets for national parks, ports, National Bridge Inventory and railways. NTAD 2012 is provided in shapefile format, which is compatible with most Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software. It is provided with International Organization for Standards (ISO) formatted metadata for all shapefiles for the first time this year. Following the initial release earlier this week, BTS staff distributed copies of the 2012 NTAD to attendees of the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego

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