After data reporting was required by Congress in 1974, the FTA's National Transit Database (NTD) was set up to be the repository of data about the financial, operating and asset conditions of American transit systems. The NTD records the financial, operating, and asset condition of transit systems helping to keep track of the industry and provide public information and statistics. The NTD is designed to support local, state and regional planning efforts and help governments and other decision-makers make multi-year comparisons and perform trend analyses. It contains a wealth of information such as agency funding sources, inventories of vehicles and maintenance facilities, safety event reports, measures of transit service provided and consumed, and data on transit employees.

FTA uses NTD data to apportion funding to urbanized and rural areas in the United States. Transit agencies report data on a number of key metrics including Vehicle Revenue Miles (VRM), Vehicle Revenue Hours (VRH), Passenger Miles Traveled (PMT), Unlinked Passenger Trips (UPT), and Operating Expenses (OE). This website provides reference materials to support reporting to the NTD and links to NTD data products. 

New in 2023

In 2023, FTA released its Report Year 2022 NTD data products, which provide the most recent data on transit ridership, expenses, fares, assets and other transit system information. The NTD Data Products are posted annually. Transit agencies submit data to the NTD by their assigned annual deadline, which the FTA subsequently reviews. Reviews of Report Year 2022 data concluded in July 2023; this means 2022 is the most recent year for which we have complete information. See the NTD Data page to view the full set of publications and documentation.

FTA grant recipients – those receiving funding from the Urbanized Area Formula Program (5307) or Rural Formula Program (5311) – are required to submit data to the NTD in uniform categories. Nearly 3,000 transit providers report to the NTD through the Internet-based system.

NTD data products include: 

• Single Summary of Transit (Formerly National Transit Summaries and Trends) New for 2023 
• Time Series files, which include data on transit systems dating back to 1991 and may be used for year-over-year analyses of transit data by system and mode 
• Database Files for bespoke analyses of raw NTD data on service, ridership, finances, fleets and more 
• Enhanced Database File Dictionary that lists fields included across all NTD Database Files, their sources in the NTD Database, and their definitions 
• Up-to-date time series of monthly ridership data 
• Up-to-date time series of safety data

Frequently Asked Questions

Have questions about NTD reporting? Check out the list of frequently asked questions to answer remaining questions not addressed by the webpage's resources.