On October 13, 2020, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) released a letter regarding the effects of the COVID-19 public health emergency on National Transit Database (NTD) reporting. Excerpts from this letter are provided below, as well as a link to the full document. FTA plans to release the NTD Annual Data Publications in November 2020 (one month later than usual).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Policy Updates (e.g., COVID-19)
- COVID-19 FAQs: Provides answers to grantee FAQs regarding COVID-19.
- Guide: NTD Reporting and COVID-19: Provides information about the impacts of COVID-19 on NTD reporting specifically. We will update guidance on this page as necessary.
One challenge many agencies are facing is on-vehicle data collection (i.e., ridership sampling). Report Year 2020 (RY 2020) is normally a mandatory sampling year for urban operators reporting to the NTD. However, FTA has waived the sampling requirement for all systems that use in-person sampling activities. This includes all activities involving onboard data collectors. For the 2020 NTD Annual Report, reporters may instead use the average passenger trip length from the most recent prior year sample, which in some cases will be from 2017. The Guide: NTD Reporting and COVID-19 contains further information on this topic.