Transportation Documents and Multimedia Presentations Now Available on "SMART" CD-ROM

Contact DOT 178-95 Scott Hoeft 202-776-1235 Robert Zarnetske 202-366-5081

Wednesday, October 18, 1995 -- The Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) today announced the release of the State and Metropolitan Analysis for Regional Transportation (SMART) CD-ROM containing more than 200 documents and multimedia presentations.

"The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has performed a valuable service for transportation data users around the country," Secretary Pe¤a said. "By providing it on CD-ROM and the Internet, material that was previously widely scattered is now readily available from one convenient source."

Dr. T. R. Lakshmanan, director of BTS, noted that, "Planners from nearly every state have identified and contributed a wide range of materials such as reference documents, video clips, software packages, travel models, surveys and data sets. The project offers transportation planners the opportunity to present their best work to others in the field."

The SMART Project was conceived to help Metropolitan Planning Organizations and state Departments of Transportation planners respond to the increased requirements of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

An experiment in electronic collaboration, the project involves actually gathering the collective wisdom of the transportation planning community and making the materials easy to use and easy to share. In addition to BTS, the department's Federal Highway and Federal Transit Administrations and metropolitan and state transportation planners around the country made this project a reality.

The SIGCAT (Special Interest Group for CD-ROM Applications Technology) Foundation awarded DOT a Significant Achievement Recognition Award of Excellence in May 1995 for the development of the SMART CD.

Dr. Lakshmanan said, "If the prototype proves useful, BTS will continue to produce and maintain a more extensive CD and Internet library for transportation planners."

To ask questions or order a copy of the SMART CD-ROM, please contact:

• Scott Hoeft at 202/776-1235, or e-mail: scott.hoeft@bts.gov
• Robert Zarnetske, Project Director, at 202/366-5081, or e-mail: robert.zarnetske@bts.gov

The SMART Internet Library can be accessed at the following addresses:

• World Wide Web: http://www.bts.gov
• Gopher: gopher://gopher.bts.gov
• Ftp: ftp://ftp.bts.gov

All users of this product are encouraged to submit comments. If this presentation of materials can help satisfy the need for planning aids, future versions would be planned incorporating recommendations, new documents and additional reference sources recommended by these reviews.