Friday, April 5, 2013 - The number of commercial truck crossings into the United States from Canada and Mexico was 10.7 million in 2012, 3.6 percent more than in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration.  That 2012 increase follows a 1.7 percent rise from 2010 to 2011 after four years of decline from 2005 to 2009, a period that includes the recent recession. The truck-crossing numbers are included in the 2012 border-crossing data posted today on the BTS website. Collection of border-crossing data was begun in response to implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. The data allow tracking of cross-border traffic and are used for transportation planning, port studies, travel analyses, and corridor assessments. The database also includes numbers of incoming trains, buses, containers, personal vehicles, and pedestrians entering the United States through land ports and ferry crossings on the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico border. The database shows that 156 million people crossed into the U.S. from Mexico in personal vehicles or as pedestrians in 2012, a 3.5 percent increase from 2011.  Also, 62.4 million people entered the U.S. from Canada in personal vehicles or as pedestrians in 2012, a 4.7 percent increase from 2011.  Border crossing/entry data from 1995 to 2012 can be found on the BTS website. Contact Dave Smallen: 202-366-5568.