About the Transportation Secure Data Center

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

Photo of researchers looking at a large, colorful map of the United States.
Housed at NREL, the TSDC is a centralized repository of detailed transportation data from hundreds of travel surveys and studies conducted across the nation.

Launched in 2010, the TSDC serves as a secure centralized repository and archive for high-resolution transportation data from hundreds of travel and transit surveys and studies covering more than 70% of U.S. states. It relieves individual agencies from the burden of fielding data-access requests.

NREL screens the initial data for quality control, translates each dataset 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 on 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

The TSDC's multifaceted data resources are applicable 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
  • Validation of transportation data from other sources
  • Toll and pricing research.

More Information

The following publications provide information about the TSDC's history and processing routines:

Archiving Data From New Survey Technologies: Enabling Research With High-Precision Data While Preserving Participant Privacy, Transportation Research Procedia (2015)

Map Matching and Real-World Integrated Sensor Data Warehousing, NREL Presentation (2013)

TSDC Publications

Check out the wide array of publications exemplifying the breadth of research and analysis enabled by the TSDC's rich transportation data.

Additional Data Resources

The following resources from NREL and the U.S. Department of Energy provide access to additional transportation data:

Alternative Fuels Data Center

Fleet DNA: Commercial Fleet Vehicle Operating Data

FleetREDI: Fleet Research, Energy Data, and Insights

Livewire Data Platform

National Fuel Cell Technology Evaluation Center

Open EI: Open Energy Information.

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