NORTH AMERICAN
TRANSPORTATION STATISTICS INTERCHANGE

The North American Transportation Statistics Interchange is a trilateral initiative between the transportation and statistical agencies of Canada, Mexico and the United States. Since 1991, the North American Transportation Statistics Interchange has provided a forum for the exchange of information and for the discussion of topics and issues related to transportation statistics in and among the participating countries. 

The effectiveness and efficiency of national and North American transportation relies heavily on sound information. Accurate, comprehensive, and timely transportation-related information is a key component in business, government, and private decision-making. For private, corporate and national policy levels, accurate data, comparable across modes and countries, is important to make effective investments with scarce resources; to understand changes in dynamic transportation markets; to evaluate transportation benefits and impacts; and to support critical decision-making in the public and private sectors.

The Interchange has promoted closer working ties between the transportation and statistical agencies of North America and led to a number of key projects including the joint development of the Canadian and United States Standard Classification of Transported Goods (SCTG), the resolution of data inconsistencies in trans-border merchandise trade data, and the exchange of ideas on the development of national reports. Trilateral cooperation has led to the development of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), and provided for an exchange of ideas on how to improve and standardize the handling of transportation data in national economic accounts. 

Participating Government Agencies

The participating agencies include Statistics Canada and Transport Canada, the Secretaría de Communicaciones y Transportes (SCT) (Ministry of Communications and Transportation), the Instituto Mexicano del Transporte (IMT) (Mexican Institute of Transportation) and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI) (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics) from Mexico; and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and the U.S. Census Bureau from the United States.

Accomplishments

The North American Transportation Statistics Interchange project has had a number of key objectives. These are to: 

• identify key information that will help provide a comprehensive view of transportation in North America; 
• characterize transportation activity and impacts across and between Canada, Mexico and the United States; 
• reveal specific data comparability differences within and across countries, 
• identify data and information gaps; and 
• begin discussions for reducing comparability differences and data gaps through cooperative activities. 

The North American Transportation in Figures report and the North American Transportation Statistics On-Line Database are two outcomes of this project.

The North American Transportation Statistics On-Line Database

The North American Transportation Statistics On-Line Database presents comparative information on transportation and transportation-related activities in Canada, the United States and Mexico, both within individual countries and between the countries. This database, presented in French, English and Spanish, covers 12 thematic areas, including transportation and the economy, transportation safety, transportation’s impact on energy and the environment, passenger and freight activity, and transportation and trade.

This online database currently contains 31 tables with additions planned for the future, and allows users to obtain both value data in any of the three national currencies and volume data in metric or U.S. measurement units. The online database updates a subset of tables and figures from the North American Transportation in Figures report published in 2000. The most recent update to the database by all three countries was undertaken in November 2006.

March 2007