National Transportation Atlas Database Spring 2020 Update
The Spring 2020 update to the National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD) was released today with three new datasets and nine updated datasets.
NTAD is a Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) compilation of geospatial datasets representing the nation’s transportation infrastructure, containing roadways, railways, waterways, and airports.
The new datasets in this release are Ferry Terminals and Routes, primary and secondary roads features from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 TIGER/Line shapefiles, and an additional layer to the DOT region database for Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regions.
Additional updates in this release include:
- Rail data:
- North American Rail Lines
- North American Rail Nodes
- Railroad Crossings
- Amtrak Routes
- Amtrak Stations
- Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Boundaries;
- Congressional Districts with revised database schema;
- Alternative Fueling Stations;
- National Parks
New Dataset – Ferry Terminals and Routes: According to the National Census of Ferry Operators, New York had the highest number of ferry passenger boardings (about 28 million) of any state in 2017. This passenger number represented nearly 65% of passenger boardings for the northeast region and nearly 25% of passenger boardings for the U.S. In the northeast, Massachusetts had the second highest number of passenger boardings (about 8 million) and New Jersey had the third highest (about 6 million).
NTAD is available for download in comma separated values (CSV), Keyhole Markup Language (KML), and shapefile formats through the BTS Geospatial Data Catalog. Additionally, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standard Web Feature Services (WFS) (including Web Mapping Services (WMS)) are available for all NTAD datasets. Also available are optimized services that allow for fast rendering of full NTAD datasets, and vector tile services for 13 of the largest NTAD datasets. These full NTAD datasets and their respective faster services are designated by service names ending in “DS” for each layer, and the vector tiles service names ending in “VT”.
BTS now uses a dynamic NTAD publication cycle, making updated data available throughout the year when they become available from their respective government agencies. Follow @TransportStats on Twitter for announcements of additional dataset releases throughout the year. Contacts: Press: Dave Smallen, [email protected]. For technical information and questions: Dominic Menegus: (202) 366-8717, or email [email protected].
