Weekly News Digest

DOT 65-04
April 30, 2004

DOT Issues Quarterly Domestic Airfare Report. On April 30, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued its quarterly Domestic Airline Fares Consumer Report, providing information about average prices paid by consumers in the 1,000 largest city-pair air markets in the contiguous 48 states during the third quarter of 2003. The report also contains a special section that examines the impact on fares, traffic and revenue of the entry of low-fare carrier AirTran into new markets. It may be obtained at http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/. Contact: Bill Mosley: (202) 366-4570.

TSI highlighted in BTS’ Journal of Transportation Statistics. The new edition of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ (BTS) Journal of Transportation Statistics, Vol. 6, No. 2/3, includes a look at the Transportation Services Index (TSI) by those who developed it. TSI is a single seasonally adjusted index of the month-to-month changes in the output of services provided by the for-hire transportation industries, including railroad, air, truck, inland waterways, pipeline, and local transit. Professor of Economics Kajal Lahiri and graduate assistant Vincent Yao of the State University of New York at Albany along with George Washington University’s Professor of Economics Herman Stekler and Senior Mathematical BTS Statistician Peg Young wrote “Monthly Output Index for the U.S. Transportation Sector” for The Journal released yesterday. The Journal continually features original research on transportation activity and its importance to society. To order a free copy of the Journal of Transportation Statistics, go to the BTS website at www.bts.gov and use the websites “Products” link. Contact other than orders: Roger Lotz: 202-366-2246.

NEA Selects DOT’s Financial Management System. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has selected the Delphi Financial Management System, developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), as NEA’s finance and accounting system. Under an agreement with DOT, NEA will use Delphi to manage its $117 million annual budget and to produce auditable financial statements. Delphi was developed by DOT’s Enterprise Services Center (ESC), located at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City, and was piloted in April 2000 by the department’s Federal Railroad Administration. Over the following 3½ years, DOT converted all its operating administrations to Delphi. Delphi provides efficient, integrated financial management for DOT’s 60,000 employees and $58.6 billion annual budget. DOT is the first cabinet-level agency to finish converting all its sub-agencies to a state-of-the-art, commercial off-the-shelf financial management application running on a single copy of the software. Contact: Bill Mosley: (202) 366-4570.

Briefing Room