1. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FREIGHT ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK (FAF) AND THE COMMODITY FLOW SURVEY (CFS)?

The CFS primarily covers the mining, manufacturing, and wholesale sectors. FAF is comprehensive and integrates additional data to estimate volumes of shipments from industries that are not covered by the CFS, including foreign trade. The CFS provides the building blocks for the FAF:

• Typically, about 70 percent of FAF freight flows by value are directly from the CFS;
• Definitions for FAF’s domestic and foreign regions;
• Standard Classification of Transported Goods (SCTG) commodity coding scheme, used at the two-digit level for FAF, and FAF mode classifications.

2. HOW ARE METROPOLITAN AREAS DEFINED IN THE FAF?

The CFS regions are a hybrid of Core-Based Statistical Areas (defined by the Office of Management and Budget) and state boundaries (any single CFS region is limited to only one State). BTS and Census selected these major regional economic centers with the goal of balancing the need for wide geographic representation with the need for data of good quality. The result is a unique region delineation that includes Metropolitan Areas (including partial), state remainders, and entire states.

FAF5 to FAF6: The 2022 zone structure (FAF6) has more domestic zones than the 2017 (FAF5) zone structure. The changes are described in detail on the Census CFS geographies page. 

FAF4 to FAF5: While there are no changes to the number of CFS areas between 2012 and 2017, there are changes to the CFS area boundary definition for three 2017 CFS areas: Birmingham-Hoover-Talladega, AL; Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK (TX Part); and Lake Charles-Jennings, LA. In addition to the counties included in the 2012 CFS area definition, the 2017 CFS area for Birmingham-Hoover-Talladega includes Tallapoosa County, AL; Dallas-Fort Worth includes Fannin County, TX; and Lake Charles-Jennings includes Jefferson Davis Parish, LA.

More information is available at the Census CFS program page.

3. BESIDES THE COMMODITY FLOW SURVEY (CFS), WHAT OTHER DATA SOURCES ARE USED TO CONSTRUCT THE FAF?

Other major data sources for the FAF include Census Foreign Trade Statistics, Economic Census data, Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture, Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey (VIUS), National Highway Planning Network (NHPN), Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS), Energy Information Administration (EIA), and other industrial data. 

4. ARE THERE COUNTY-LEVEL DATA OR DATA FOR FINER LEVELS OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE FAF?  

Users can access experimental county-level FAF data at https://www.bts.gov/faf/county.

5. IS THERE A LIST OF COUNTIES THAT MAKE UP THE FAF DOMESTIC ZONES?

Yes, a list of the U.S. counties comprising FAF4, FAF5 and FAF6 domestic regions can be found on the Census CFS website.

6. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CURRENT VALUE AND CONSTANT VALUE?

Because of inflation, the purchasing power of the dollar changes from year to year. Current value (Total Current M$) of freight in FAF reflects the actual nominal-dollar values for the reported year. For example, the current values of goods for 2014 are in 2014 dollars.

Constant value (Total M$) reflects the inflation-adjusted dollar values in FAF benchmark year dollars. Since the FAF5 benchmark year is 2017, the price of each commodity is set similar to its respective price in 2017. For example, the constant values of goods for 2019 are in 2017 dollars. For FAF4, the base year is 2012. The FAF6 benchmark year is 2022, therefore the constant value of goods for FAF6 annual estimates will be in 2022 dollars. 

7. WHAT IS A TON-MILE?

A ton-mile is the movement of one ton of freight for one mile. (It is similar to vehicle-miles travelled, or VMT.) This measure is at the shipment level, so any total flow is the sum of the individual products of distance and weight.

8. WHAT ARE THE USES FOR FAF SUMMARY STATISTICS?

The “Summary Statistics” available on the FAF webpage include both state-level and FAF zone-level summary tables in Excel format.  These tables are designed to provide illustrative examples of FAF data and to quickly provide basic state-level and FAF zone-level freight statistics.  Please note that these tables are generated using “Total Flows,” which include both domestic and foreign trade shipments moved within the U.S., and they are presented by domestic mode of transportation only.

Five sets of summary statistics are provided with the release of the FAF:

• Tonnage/value for shipments within, from, and to state/FAF zone by trade type and mode;
• Tonnage/value for shipments within, from, and to state/FAF zone by commodity;
• Top ten commodities by tonnage/value shipped within, from, and to state/FAF zone;
• Top five trade partners by tonnage/ value; and
• Top 50 origin-destination pairs by tonnage/value (NOT provided for FAF4).

“Within” means intrastate/intra-FAF-zone moves, “From” is for outbound shipments moved from the given state/FAF zone to all other states/FAF zones, and “To” is for inbound shipments moved from all other states/FAF zones to the given state/FAF zone. Note that the “From” and “To” tabulations exclude intrastate/intra-FAF-zone movements.

9. WHAT IS THE DATA TABULATION TOOL (DTT)? 

The DTT (previously called the Data Extraction Tool, or DET) is a web-based tool that allows users to extract a subset of desired records from the national FAF origin-destination-commodity-mode (ODCM) matrix. The resulting output can be saved in csv file format. Data in this file can then be analyzed or processed by the user to generate statistics as needed.

10. WHY IS THE DTT NOT WORKING?

For general FAF assistance or DTT support, please email faf@dot.gov.

11.  WHAT ARE THE IDEAL USE CASES FOR FAF AND WHAT ARE FAF'S KNOWN LIMITATIONS?

This section describes FAF's fitness for use, limitations, and recommendations for users to overcome potential limitations. 

Suitable use cases of FAF include:

• Evaluating impacts of freight on network performance, infrastructure, safety, economic development and the environment
• Supply chain analysis across industries and geographies
• Planning for future infrastructure management and systems operations

Strengths of FAF products include:

• Availability to the public and user accessibility
• Stability: FAF is a long-standing Federal data source 
• Includes national and international trade
• Includes multimodal perspectives
• Includes 42 commodity group types
• Supports analysis at multiple scales
• Supports network flow analysis on the National Highway System, higher functional class roadways, and on multicounty corridors

Limitations of FAF products include:

• Not tailored to a specific region
• Potential inconsistency with local growth scenarios 
• Local roadways not fully captured
• May not have enough granularity for local-scale analysis; local-level analysis likely requires supplemental data
• Commodity details may be insufficient for some types of analyses

Users may overcome limitations by:

• Supplementing their analyses with additional data
• Consulting with shippers, logistics operators, local authorities, or other experts to verify their findings