About the Transportation Secure Data Center

The Transportation Secure Data Center (TSDC) makes vital transportation data broadly available online to users while preserving the privacy of survey participants.

Photo of researchers looking at a large, colorful map of the United States.

NREL data experts and engineers analyze large sets of complex transportation data. Housed at NREL, the Transportation Secure Data Center serves as a centralized repository of detailed transportation data from travel surveys and studies conducted across the nation. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL

The TSDC relieves individual agencies from the burden of fielding numerous data-access requests. It also provides additional features such as linked reference layers, data filtering, road grade and road network matching, summary statistics, and data set comparisons.

NREL screens the initial data for quality control, translates each data set into a consistent format, and interprets the data for spatial analysis. NREL's processing routines join data points to the road network, link U.S. Census and other spatial data layers, and add information such as road grade.

NREL maintains the TSDC in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Seed support for transit survey data collection and organization was provided by the Mineta Transportation Institute and Kansas State University.

Learn about NREL's intelligent vehicle energy analysis.

Applications for Data

As a secure centralized repository for global positioning system (GPS) data from numerous travel surveys and studies, the TSDC is useful for a range of applications:

Transit planning

Travel demand modeling

Congestion mitigation research

Emissions and air pollution modeling

Vehicle energy and power analysis

Climate change impact studies

Homeland Security evacuation planning

Alternative fuel station planning

Validating transportation data from other sources

Toll and pricing research.