TRIS Online Joins National Transportation Library on the Web

Contact DOT 4-99 Cindy Sparkman BTS 202-366-5684 Barbara Post TRB 202-334-3385

Thursday, January 14, 1999 -- The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the Transportation Research Board (TRB) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop, test and implement a fully searchable, public-domain, web-based version of the Transportation Research Information Service (TRIS) and to integrate it into the National Transportation Library (NTL), developed by BTS.

"President Clinton and Vice President Gore have worked to make government more accessible to every American," U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater said. "This partnership will facilitate transportation research by making information more available to both industry specialists and the American people in the 21st century and the new millennium. Sharing the latest transportation research will ultimately help keep our national transportation system world class and safe."

BTS Director Dr. Ashish Sen and TRB Executive Director Robert E. Skinner, Jr. said that TRIS is a natural complement to the virtual National Transportation Library, which has been developed by BTS over the past six years.

The existing TRIS database consists of about 500,000 records and is expected to be accessible on the Internet later this year. Nearly 70 percent of the government reports listed in the database are expected to become available within three years for downloading or through e-mail requests. The database, to be known as TRIS Online, also will include web pages that will enable users to share in-progress research information.

TRIS, the world’s largest transportation bibliographic database, has been under development by the TRB over the last 30 years with additional support from state and federal transportation agencies.

TRIS Online will continue to be produced by the TRB. BTS will publish the database on the Internet as a critical component of the NTL and enhance it by developing full text links to TRB, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and other transportation publishers and government transportation resources.

The NTL, which includes the largest collection of transportation reports on the Internet, catalogs and indexes transportation materials from around the world. The NTL will ultimately include a national union catalog of the major transportation library collections and links to major transportation resources throughout the world.

The NTL may be accessed on the Internet at ntl.bts.gov. BTS also has a statistical information hot-line at (800) 853-1351.