Transportation Public Finance Statistics (TPFS)
Transportation Public Finance Statistics (TPFS) provides information on transportation-related revenue and expenditures for all levels of government, including federal, state, and local, and for all modes of transportation.
As of June 2024, TPFS replaces the previous Government Transportation Financial Statistics (GTFS).
The TPFS now releases preliminary estimates! The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) will release preliminary estimates in June in addition to the final annual release in December. This new release increases the timeliness of the statistics by 6 months, reporting preliminary estimates 18 months after the one-year reference period (e.g., data for the 2022 reference period is published in June 2024). The final annual release of TPFS occurs 24 months after the one-year reference period (e.g., data for the 2022 reference period is published December 2024). The TPFS Technical Documentation details the estimation methodology.
TPFS Products
TPFS Data Visualizations in Transportation Economic Trends
Background
TPFS also expands on the categories of revenues and expenditures:
- Expenditures separated by:
- Capital: outlays for new equipment and structures and for improving or enhancing the capacity and quality of the existing equipment and structures. The defining feature of capital expenditure is the useful life; capital improvements are intended to last more than one year.
- Non-Capital: includes operation and maintenance costs, as well as research, administration, and other costs government agencies incur in managing transportation systems that are not capital investments.
- Revenues separated by:
- Own-Source: includes user-based revenue and other revenue received directly or directly generated by transportation agencies (e.g., dedicated taxes levied by transportation agencies, other operating revenue received directly by transportation agencies). Own-source revenue can also have a sub classification of user-based.
- User-Based: includes only revenue generated from charges on users of the mode related to their transportation activity (e.g., fuel taxes, motor vehicle taxes and fees, and tolls for highways, transit fares, etc.).
- Other: revenue that is not user-based
- Supporting: funds collected from non-transportation-related activities but dedicated to support transportation programs, e.g., receipts received by state and local governments from sales or property taxes. It excludes funds raised from transportation-related activities but used to finance programs other than transportation.
- Own-Source: includes user-based revenue and other revenue received directly or directly generated by transportation agencies (e.g., dedicated taxes levied by transportation agencies, other operating revenue received directly by transportation agencies). Own-source revenue can also have a sub classification of user-based.
- Federal cash flows that pass through transportation trust funds separately from general funds.
The TPFS User Guide details the classifications and sources for data.
A core part of the BTS mission is to provide the transportation financial statistics needed to inform the policy and management decision-making of a variety of transportation actors, including policymakers at all levels of government.
The government plays an important role in the U.S. transportation system, as a provider of transportation infrastructure and as an administrator and regulator of the system. The government spends a large amount of funds on building, rehabilitating, maintaining, operating, and administering the transportation system. Government revenue generated from several sources including user fees, taxes from transportation and non-transportation-related activities, and grants from federal, state, and local governments primarily supports these activities.
Major Pieces of Legislation
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provided approximately $673.8 billion for transportation over 5 years. The BIL’s impact on transportation expenditures will be captured in 2022-2026 releases. For more details on those funds, visit Statistics on Transportation Funding in the BIL.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021 (CRRSA Act), and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act – impacted transportation expenditures. The CARES Act funded $114.8 billion in transportation expenditures in 2020 and the CRRSA Act funded $45.0 billion in transportation expenditures and the ARP funded $58.4 billion for in transportation expenditures in 2021. For more information on those funds, visit COVID-19 Stimulus Funding for Transportation.