What is the purpose of the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS)?
Who conducts the CFS and how often is it conducted?
What types of establishments are included in the CFS?
List of NAICS industries covered in the 2017 CFS
What type of information is collected in the CFS?
How were the data collected in this survey?
What are some common uses of the data?
When will data products be available from the 2017 CFS?
What are some of the differences between the 2017 survey and earlier surveys?

What is the purpose of the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS)?
The CFS assesses the demand for transportation facilities and services, energy use, and safety risk and environmental concerns.  CFS data are used by policy makers and transportation planners in various federal, state, and local agencies.  Additionally, business owners, private researchers, and analysts use the CFS data for analyzing trends in the movement of goods, mapping spatial patterns of commodity and vehicle flows, forecasting demands for the movement of goods, and determining needs for associated infrastructure and equipment.  The CFS provides a comprehensive picture of national freight flows and stands as the only publicly available source of data for the highway mode.

Who conducts the CFS and how often is it conducted?
The CFS is conducted as a partnership between the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. The survey is conducted on a five-year cycle as a component of the economic census. Previous surveys were conducted in 1993, 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2012.

What types of establishments are included in the CFS?
The CFS is a shipper-based survey, and that captures data on shipments originating from select types of business establishments located in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The 2017 survey sampled 103,877 establishments with paid employees that were located in the United States and were classified in the 2012 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) as mining, manufacturing, wholesale, and select retail and services trade industries, namely, electronic shopping and mail-order houses, fuel dealers, and publishers.  Additionally, the survey covers auxiliary establishments (i.e., warehouses and managing offices) of multi-establishments companies.   

The CFS does not include establishments classified in transportation, construction, and most retail and services trade industries.  Other industry areas that are not covered, but may have significant shipping activity, include agriculture and government.  For agriculture, specifically, the CFS does not cover shipments of agricultural products from the farm site to the processing centers or terminal elevators (most likely short-distance local movements), but does cover the shipments of these products from the initial processing centers or terminal elevators onward.

Data for government-operated establishments are excluded from the CFS. These include public utilities, publicly-operated bus and subway systems, public libraries, and government-owned hospitals. The CFS also excludes establishments or firms with no paid employees and foreign establishments.

What type of information is collected in the CFS?
The CFS collects information about the commodities shipped by U.S. establishments. Information collected for each outbound shipment includes:

• Shipment ID Number
• Shipment Date (Month, Day)
• Shipment Value
• Shipment Weight in pounds
• Commodity Code from Standard Classification of Transported Goods (SCTG) manual
• Commodity Description
• An indication of whether the shipment was temperature controlled
• United Nations or North America (UN/NA) number for hazardous material shipments
• U.S. Destination (city, state, zip code) – or gateway for export shipment
• Mode(s) of transport
• An indication of whether the shipment was an export
• City and country of destination for exports
• Export mode

By CFS definition, a shipment is a single movement of goods, commodities, or products from an establishment to a customer or to another establishment owned or operated by the same company as the originating establishment (e.g., a warehouse, distribution center, or retail or wholesale outlet). Full or partial truckloads are counted as a single shipment only if all commodities on the truck are destined for the same location. If a truck makes multiple deliveries on a route, the goods delivered at each stop are counted as one shipment. Interoffice memos, payroll checks, or business correspondence are not considered shipments. Shipments such as refuse, scrap paper, waste, or recyclable materials are not considered shipments unless the establishment is in the business of selling or providing these materials.

How were the data collected in this survey?
The sample for the 2017 CFS consisted of 103,877 establishments.  Each establishment selected into the 2017 CFS sample was assigned to report for four reporting weeks via questionnaire.  Each reporting week was in a separate calendar quarter and was in the same relative position each quarter.  For example, an establishment might have been requested to report data for the 5^th, 18^th, 31^st, and 44^th weeks of the survey year.  In this instance, each reporting week corresponds to the 5th week of each quarter. 

The establishments were asked to provide specific shipment information about a sample of their individual outbound shipments during the reporting week in each calendar quarter.  Respondents had the option to report electronically via Centurion, the Census Bureau’s electronic reporting system, or through paper questionnaire.

What are some common uses of the data?
Analysts and researchers in both the public and private sectors use data from the CFS for a variety of purposes, including:

• analyzing trends in goods movement over time;
• conducting national, regional and sectoral economic analysis;
• developing models and analytical tools for policy analyses, management and investment decisions;
• forecasting future demand for goods movement and associated infrastructure and equipment needs;
• establishing benchmarks for estimating national accounts; and
• analyzing and mapping spatial patterns of commodity and vehicle flows.

CFS data are used as the basis for the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Freight Analysis Framework, a model that displays by mode the movement of goods over the national transportation network.

In addition, the CFS Hazardous Materials report is the sole source of hazardous material flow data available for the highway mode.

When will data products be available from the 2017 CFS?
Preliminary data tables from the 2017 survey were released on December 6, 2018 and can be found here.

These tables provide shipment characteristics (value, tons, ton-miles, average miles) by:

• mode of transport
• total modal activity
• distance shipped
• shipment weight
• type of industry
• commodity shipped

Final data will be released July 2020 and will include a comprehensive set of data tables, such as:

• shipment characteristics at the national, state, and metropolitan area levels
• geographic flow tables by commodity, industry, and mode
• specially tabulated tables for hazardous materials and exports
• specially tabulated tables for temperature control

What are some of the differences between the 2017 survey and earlier surveys?
The planning and design of the 2017 CFS resulted in several major improvements to the design of the survey. Highlighted efforts and improvements included:

• Improved sample design – the 2017 sample size was 103,877 establishments (102,565 in 2012 and 102,369 in 2007), incorporating both state-level and national-level reliability constraints;
• NAICS 51223 (Music Publishers) was included as an in-scope publishing industry in 2017 but not in 2012.
• In 2012 and prior surveys, Prepress Services establishments (2007 NAICS 323122) were excluded from the CFS.  However the 2012 NAICS revision eliminated Prepress Services as a separate industry and grouped it with Trade Binding and Related Work (2007 NAICS 323121) into NAICS 323120 (Support Activities for Printing).  For 2017, all of NAICS 323120 was considered to be in scope.
• Private truck is now referred to as Company-owned truck.
• Enhanced Geomiler software and improved mileage routing logic (to read more see "Methodological Changes to Mileage Calculation for the 2017 CFS" under the methodology section);

Back to top

The following tables include a summary comparison of the other key characteristics among the 1993, 1997, 2002, and 2007 Commodity Flow Surveys.

Back to top