New Journal of Transportation and Statistics Released at TRB Meetings in Washington, D.C.

Contact DOT 08-98 Marsha Fenn 202-366-1845 Selena Giesecke 202-366-0777

Monday, January 12, 1998 -- The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today announced the release of a new Journal on Transportation and Statistics. The journal will serve as a forum for the latest developments in transportation information and data, theory, concepts and methods of analysis relevant to transportation systems and their roles in society, the economy and the environment.

BTS Director T. R. Lakshmanan said that in creating the journal, "We seek to provide an instrument for open, scientific, and scholarly exchanges that hopefully will aid us in advancing the state of knowledge about transportation in a free society." He announced the launching of the new journal at the annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington.

The purpose of this new journal is to advance the art and science of transportation information to better serve society’s common goals, Lakshmanan said. The journal will provide a unique venue for studies that present new sources of transportation information; deal with the science of collecting, evaluating, managing, and disseminating transportation data; analyze information to provide insights for public and private decisionmaking; and advance theory and methods relevant to all three subject areas. The journal also will include methodological and empirical studies which will analyze trends, measure the performance of transportation systems, and develop key indicators.

The first issue includes articles from a number of prominent transportation professionals such as Peter Nijkamp and Gerard Pepping on "Meta-Analysis for Explaining the Variance in Public Transport Demand Elasticities in Europe" and James Murphy and Mark A. Delucchi on "A Review of the Literature on the Social Cost of Motor-Vehicle Use."

The journal will initially be published twice a year, with the intention of producing a quarterly edition if the volume and caliber of the research papers submitted will support it. The first year’s subscription is complimentary. Participation from government, academia and industry is encouraged. The editor-in-chief and a distinguished 26-member editorial board were selected largely from outside the U.S. government, although DOT is well represented.

For information on submitting a research paper or to receive journal guidelines for paper submission, write or email the Managing Editor, JTS, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation, Room 3430, 400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590, journal@bts.gov.

One-year complimentary subscriptions can be obtained by faxing requests to (202) 366-3640, by emailing requests to orders@bts.gov, or by writing to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics at the address in the paragraph above. The journal also will be available by visiting the BTS website at www.bts.gov.