Welcome
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| Dr. Ashish K. Sen |
Welcome to the first edition of BTS NEWS – a
quarterly newsletter designed to keep you up on the happenings at the
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the federal source for
transportation statistics.
First, let us introduce ourselves. BTS is a 10
-year-old agency in the U.S. Department of Transportation that
collects and distributes information on all forms of transportation.
We were created as the transportation counterpart to the more well-known
statistical agencies of the federal government, such as the Bureau of
Labor Statistics and the National Center for Educational Statistics.
Although we are growing rapidly, BTS remains a small
agency engaged in many wide-ranging activities to improve the quality
of transportation statistics and to make data more accessible to more
people. These activities include improvement of databases, collection
of more data, and better dissemination of data.
Why is this important? We believe that better
access to information leads to more informed decisions at all levels of
government, in the private sector, and by consumers who are selecting
their flights or their way to travel.
Transportation makes up 11 percent of our
nation’s Gross Domestic Product. With better information, we can make
that significant part of our economy safer and more productive. We can
improve mobility and security. And we can contribute to environmental
efforts.
In this quarterly newsletter, we will tell you what the
people at BTS are doing to improve transportation statistics. At the same
time, we will offer tips and insights on finding transportation data
because our mission is making good transportation data available to
everyone.
Dr. Ashish Sen, Director
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
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