Freight Analysis Framework 4/26/24 Updated

Friday, April 26, 2024

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) released an updated version of its Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) commodity flow dataset. This newest version of the FAF (FAF 5.6) provides estimates of freight tonnage, value, and ton-miles¹by origin-destination pair of FAF regions, commodity type, and mode for:

Base year (2017)
Annual estimates (2018–2022)
Forecast year estimates (2025–2050)
State-level historical trend estimates (1997–2012)

FAF 5.6 is available at https://www.bts.gov/faf and includes the final annual estimates for 2022. In addition, FAF 5.6 includes improved estimates of foreign trade flows by ground modes across the California/Mexico border and by water through the FAF region named Rest of Minnesota for 2022. Future versions will include these improvements in the 2018-2021 annual estimates. FAF 5.6 also integrates updated foreign water trade totals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Freight flow estimates for 2023, which were based on projections, have been removed from our public-facing databases and will be replaced this summer with preliminary annual estimates.

BTS produces the FAF5 in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration.

¹Ton-miles is the primary physical measure of freight transportation output (https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/journal_of_transportation_and_statistics/volume_08_number_01/paper_03/index).