Data Management Plan (DMP) for “Port Performance Freight Statistics Program” dataset.
Office of Transportation Analysis, 
Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), 
U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)
2018-08-10

Contents
0. Dataset and Contact Information
1. Data Description
2. Standards Employed
3. Access Policies
4. Re-Use, Redistribution, and Derivative Products Policies
5. Archiving and Preservation Plans
6. Policies Affecting this Data Management Plan

0. Dataset and Contact Information
0.01 Lead researcher, or lead staff name: Matthew Chambers
0.02 Lead researcher, or lead staff ORCiD or other identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8085-373X
0.03 Lead researcher contact information: Matthew Chambers, 1200 New Jersey Ave SE, Washington DC 20590, E34-342, matthew.chambers@dot.gov, 202-493-2332
0.04 Organization: U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Office of Transportation Analysis
0.05 Other researchers: None 
0.06 Title of Research Proposal/Project: Port Performance Freight Statistics Program
0.07 URL: https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/port-performance/port-performance-freight-statistics-program
0.08 This is an initial DMP or a revised DMP: Revised

Other contact information:
  Alternate Contact Information
    Name: Leighton L Christiansen
	  ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0543-4268
      Institution: National Transportation Library, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation
      Address: 1200 New Jersey Ave SE, Washington D.C. 20590
      Email: leighton.christiansen@dot.gov or ntldatacurator@dot.gov
  
  Organizational Contact Information
    Name: National Transportation Library Data Curator
      Institution: National Transportation Library, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation
      Address: 1200 New Jersey Ave SE, Washington D.C. 20590
      Email: ntldatacurator@dot.gov

1. Data Description: 
The Port Performance Freight Statistics Program (PPFSP), produced by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), provides nationally-consistent performance measures of the Nation’s largest ports by tonnage, container, and dry bulk, and reports annually to Congress on port capacity and throughput. 
The PPFSP list of the top 25 ports by tonnage, dry bulk, and container / twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), are derived from official records provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). The Corps has Federal agency with responsibility for establishing and maintaining water transportation information systems. These include data and statistics on waterborne commodity and vessel movements, domestic commercial vessel characteristics, port and waterway facilities, lock facilities, lock operations, and navigation dredging projects. BTS uses these data and statistics supplemented with other data from port authorities and other Federal Agencies to measure and report port capacity and throughput. 
The BTS PPFSP data are presented in 49 port profiles, which include numerical data in 4 to 6 multipart tables and figures, a port diagrams / and supporting written analysis and 49 port vicinity inset map. Both the port profiles and port vicinity maps are only available as Adobe Acrobat PDF files.  The BTS PPFSP data exists in two distinct versions: the raw data from multiple data sources / systems and the final performance metrics, which are analyzed. 
Special tabulations are generated from the Corps water transportation information systems, including the Automatic Identification System Analysis Package (AISAP) and Channel Portfolio Tools (CPT), to produce the raw BTS PPFSP data which is aggregated in MS Excel spreadsheets and Adobe Acrobat PDFs to produce the final public version in Adobe Acrobat PDFs. 
PPFSP is an annual publication, with data available for 2015 and 2016. The data are not comparable with previous releases due to changes in commodity and vessel classifications and fluctuation of the top 25 ports by tonnage, TEU, and dry bulk tonnage. Data for 2017 will be released on January 16, 2019. 
Primary stakeholders in the data are academics, economic development corporations, the U.S. Committee on the Marine Transportation System, other Federal Agencies, investment banks, port authorities, state and local Departments of Transportation, trade associations, and Transportation Research Board (TRB).
BTS is developing and reporting new and existing port performance measures, and providing summary information on port infrastructure and types of operations. There are currently no other programs or reports that provide this level of detail or nationally-consistent measures of performance. 
BTS compiles and maintains PPFSP. The data management plan and detailed methodology describing how PPFSP is developed will be reviewed and updated by the project lead as needed at the time of each release. 

2. Standards Employed:
PPFSP collects and analyzes annual data using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, a proprietary computer application used for its wide-spread use and ability to be easily imported into statistical software for data analysis. The final public version of the data is only available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs, a proprietary computer application used for its long-term stability as a file format and flexibility of file reading. The data are labeled with the date in the file name to delineate the latest version. All data tables and figures include keys of abbreviations or initialisms, footnotes on data gaps, calculations, and verification techniques, and source citations. A Handbook of Methods << https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/docs/browse-statistical-products-and-data/port-performance/217686/ppfsp-handbook-methods.pdf>>, Glossary << https://www.bts.dot.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/docs/browse-statistical-products-and-data/port-performance/217681/ppfsp-glossary.pdf>>, and List of Acronyms, Abbreviation, and Initialisms << https://www.bts.dot.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/docs/browse-statistical-products-and-data/port-performance/217691/ppfsp-list-acronyms-abbreviations-and-initialisms.pdf>> are available on the BTS PPFSP website to document definitions and performance metrics in the dataset and with the datasets in  the National Transportation Library digital repository ROSA P. A Project Open Data .json metadata file accompanies the BTS PPFSP data files.
3. Access Policies: 
Access to the raw version of the BTS PPFSP data is limited to one (1) member of the data creation team, Matthew Chambers. The special tabulations received for creation are stored on a secure drive. The raw BTS PPFSP data are not shared with the public. The team lead, Matthew Chambers, is responsible for making sure that the raw data are not shared with persons other than the data creation team. The final, public BTS PPFSP data is an aggregate of the raw data. During aggregation, the data is grouped together by port and terminal, and the values are summed or indexed. The final grouped dataset is shared with the public via the Port Performance Freight Statistics Program publication, << https://www.bts.gov/port-performance-2017>>, or the National Transportation Library digital repository ROSA P. 

4. Re-Use, Redistribution, and Derivative Products Policies: 
The PPFSP team lead (currently, Matthew Chambers) is the member with the right to manage all the private, raw BTS PPFSP data. The final, aggregated public dataset is in the public domain and has no copyright restrictions. The dataset will also be preserved in the NTL repository, where it will remain under public domain. The data are under public domain and free for reuse, redistribution, and derivative products. 
5. Archiving and Preservation Plans: 
The public BTS PPFSP dataset will be archived in the National Transportation Library Repository and Open Science Access Portal (ROSA P). The dataset will be updated in ROSA P within 30 days of each update. Prior to archiving, the data are stored on the secured BTS networks and drives, which are backed up nightly. The US DOT systems are secured from outside users and backed up daily. 

Files in ROSA P are backed up in NTL drives at US DOT, daily; at the Centers for Disease Control, the repository managing facility, daily; and in Amazon Web Service Cloud servers in Virginia and Oregon, daily. 

The aggregated and anonymized public BTS PPFSP dataset will be retained in perpetuity.

NTL staff will mint persistent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for each dataset stored in ROSA P. These DOIs will be associated with dataset documentation as soon as they become available for use.

ROSA P meets all the criteria outlined on the “Guidelines for Evaluating Repositories for Conformance with the DOT Public Access Plan” page: <<https://ntl.bts.gov/publicaccess/evaluatingrepositories.html>>. 

6. Policies Affecting this Data Management Plan
This data management plan was created to meet the requirements enumerated in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s “Plan to Increase Public Access to the Results of Federally-Funded Scientific Research” Version 1.1 <<https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/Official%20DOT%20Public%20Access%20Plan%20ver%201.1.pdf>> and guidelines suggested by the DOT Public Access website <<https://ntl.bts.gov/publicaccess>>, in effect and current as of March, 2018.
Change Log:
2018-04-13: Initial DMP Written
2018-06-13: Laura Farley suggested changes to Matthew Chambers
2018-06-26: Matthew Chambers submitted revisions
