BTS relaunches Intercity Bus Atlas digital mapping application
Image credit: TAM America
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) has relaunched the Intercity Bus Atlas (ICBA), an interactive, digital mapping application of scheduled, intercity passenger bus services in the United States.
The Atlas features the newest stop and route information from a group of nearly 60 scheduled intercity bus providers, all of whom volunteered their schedule and network data to BTS for this project. The updated map features approximately 3,500 stops from 1,800 routes, representing scheduled services across the entire United States.
This update underscores BTS as the federal home of the only regularly-updated, comprehensive, public map of the scheduled intercity bus network of the United States. This revitalized tool provides researchers, policymakers, and planners with national-level data on the availability and connectivity of a mode of long-distance passenger transportation missing from previous statistical and cartographic products.
Users are welcome to download the geospatial files representing the stops and routes of the national network from the National Transportation Atlas Database.
BTS will update the Intercity Bus Atlas on a quarterly basis, using the newest schedule and network data from participating carriers. Future versions of the ICBA will include additional carriers as well as more information on route and stop frequency.
The National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD), published by BTS, is a set of nationwide geographic databases of transportation facilities, transportation networks, and associated infrastructure. These datasets include spatial information for transportation modal networks and intermodal terminals, as well as the related attribute information for these features. There are around 90 total datasets that make up NTAD.
Metadata documentation, as prescribed by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), is also provided for each database. These data support research, analysis, and decision-making across all modes of transportation. They are most useful at the national level, but have major applications at regional, state, and local scales throughout the transportation community. The current NTAD databases are designed for use within a geographic information system (GIS); however, the attribute data for each dataset can be accessed in any database, spreadsheet, or other software package. In 2016, NTAD switched from an annual update to updates on a continuous basis. The BTS is interested in providing different distribution approaches and developing additional datasets.
Source: USDOT
