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U.S. Department of Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation Icon United States Department of Transportation United States Department of Transportation

Intercity Bus Atlas: Partnerships and Registration

National Intercity Bus Atlas Memorandum of Understanding

INTRODUCTION
The Intercity Bus Atlas (the “Atlas”) data supports transportation decision-making by Federal, State, Local and Tribal governments; metropolitan planning organizations; transportation related associations; the private sector, including the freight community; and the public.  It is collected, compiled, analyzed, and published as part of a comprehensive set of statistics, which informs the nation about the performance, and impact of the national transportation system.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is to set forth an agreement between the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and operators of intercity bus services (the “submitter”). By agreeing to this MOU, intercity bus operators will permit the BTS to obtain Scheduled Service Data from Authoritative Sources. Scheduled Service Data are records used to plan the transport of passengers, or freight, over routes pursuant to published schedules. The Scheduled Service Data is intended to record a periodic snapshot of available intercity bus services. It is not intended for real-time or near-real-time trip planning, scheduling, or navigation. Authoritative Sources are the intercity bus service providers themselves or organizations given explicit permission to publish scheduled service data on behalf of the intercity bus service provider.

NO-COST ARRANGEMENT
This Memorandum of Understanding does not obligate or commit funds, nor is it the basis for the transfer of funds between BTS and the submitter.

TERM
This MOU shall become effective on the date the Intercity Bus Atlas Registration data is submitted to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics by the submitter. It shall remain effective for one year from the effective date with automatic one-year renewals thereafter unless terminated in accordance with the termination provisions provided herein below.

GRANTS AND LIMITATIONS OF AUTHORITY
The intercity bus operator authorizes BTS to:
      a)  collect submitter’s data at least once, but no more than four times per year; and
      b)  attribute the data to submitter by name. 

By submitting the requested information, the intercity bus operator further grants to BTS a license to such data under terms and provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution – Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC 4.0) license, which is incorporated herein.  Such license may be viewed at:   
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode

However, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the foregoing, the license referred to in this paragraph shall:
     c)  not permit BTS to make substantive material alterations to the data submitted;
     d)  terminate in its entirety upon the termination of this MOU. 

BTS further agrees that it shall:
     e)  update a submitter’s data after receiving a written update request (emails are preferred).

  1. updates will only take place if more than 10% of the records have been changed.
  2. the update request is more than 45 days before the next scheduled collection date.
  3. please send update requests to: NICBA@dot.gov.

     f)  not use the data for any commercial purpose;

     g) include on its National Intercity Bus Atlas webpage and its National Transportation Atlas Database website the following notices:

  1. the data is not intended for trip planning, scheduling, navigation, or any real-time or near real-time use by passengers, transportation operators, service providers, or transportation planners;
  2. using the data for research, analysis, and planning is permitted; and
  3. all other reuses of the data are prohibited. 

LIABILITY
BTS expressly disclaims all liability for the unauthorized use of or misuse of any data collected as a part of this effort by third parties. Further, BTS does not guarantee the real-time or near real-time accuracy or quality of the data as route service information, bus stop location information and other data collected may change over time. 

TERMINATION
Submitter may terminate their affiliation with and authorization of BTS to collect data related to the operations of their intercity bus services at any point in time provided such termination is in writing.  An e-mail termination is acceptable and preferred.  Please send a termination notice to: NICBA@dot.com.  Please give BTS 30 calendar days to terminate any data collection. 

Despite termination, the BTS retains the rights to the collected data related to the submitter’s intercity bus operations until it determines that such data is no longer relevant to its mission.

INTERCITY BUS ATLAS REGISTRATION

If you are an intercity bus provider and wish to register your data with the Intercity Bus Atlas program, please email to NICBA@dot.gov.

Memorandum of Understanding Intercity Bus Atlas

Participating Parties

Point of Contact Business Telephone Number
If the submitter or an authoritative source provides GTFS data relevant to submitter’s intercity bus operations, please provide the URL from which it can be downloaded. For any clarification, please contact nicba@dot.gov.
Waiver
I understand that submitting the above information grants the Bureau of Transportation Statistics permission to download, collect, and/or compile information about my company's busing operations from authoritative sources. I also grant the Bureau of Transportation Statistics a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License to the data collected.