What’s the Difference Between International Transportation Resources?
Barbara Post Phone: (202) 334-2990 E-Mail: bpost@nas.edu

Slide 2

What is TRIS?

• Bibliographic database of published transportation research
• Produced and maintained by the Transportation Research Board available through a variety ways including TRIS Online at the NTL
• Contains over 735,000 records
• Has been produced by TRB for over 40 years
• Indexed using the TRT

Slide 3

Cooperative Database

• Current Contributors

  • Northwestern Transportation Library

  • University California, Berkley

  • VTRC

  • Transportation Association of Canada

  • ARRB - Australia

  • VTI – Sweden

  • SWOV – Netherlands

  • ITRD

Slide 4

Coverage

Slide 5

MATERIAL IN TRIS

• All of TRB publications and papers
• Technical Reports - Federal and State governments
• University research
• Association’s and organization’s publications
• Journal Articles (Over 500 journals scanned)
• Conference proceedings papers
• Monographs

Slide 6

Philosophy

• Try to be as comprehensive as possible within scope

  • Scan newsletter and Websites for new publications

  • Review transportation library acquisition lists

• Index peer-reviewed journals cover to cover

• Cover all papers in transportation related conferences

• Accept all records provided by TRIS contributors that are not duplicate and are complete

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What is ITRD? http://www.itrd.org

• ITRD (International Transport Research Documentation) Database is a multi-lingual database that delivers high quality information on global developments in transport and transport research.

• ITRD currently contains about 400,000 records

• Indexed using ITRD Thesaurus – a four language thesaurus (maintained by ITRD members)
  

  • Pdf of ITRD Thesaurus on Web at http://www.itrd.org/downloads/thes-nume-2008-protect.pdf

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ITRD Cooperative Database

• Network of transportation information centers from countries around the world

• Information centers contribute records of transportation research publications from their country to ITRD
  Membership organization

• Records are in one of four languages – English, German, French or Spanish

Slide 9

Organization of ITRD

• Overseen by OECD Joint Transport Research Center (JTRC)

• Since 2003, managed by TRL, Ltd. in the U.K

• ITRD Operational Committee – staff from contributing centers in member countries\

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Subject Coverage

• Accident Studies

• Construction of pavements, bridges, and tunnels

• Design of roads and related structures

• Earthworks and drainage of soil

• Environment

• Highway financing and administration

• Intermodal transport

• Road safety and accidents

• Traffic and transport

• Vehicles

Slide 11

Material in ITRD

Slide 12

ITRD’s Operation

• ITRD’s member organizations produce records of transportation publications for their country

• Member’s submit records to one of four coordinating centers – TRL, UK; BAST Germany, INRETS, France; CEDEX, Spain
  Records are reviewed and validated (not all records submitted are added to ITRD)

• Centers are reimbursed for records and coordinating centers are paid for review of records

Slide 13

ITRD MEMBER COUNTRIES

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Contributing ITRD Countries

• Last year 11 countries submitted records

• Through June 2009 – 4319 records added

• Many countries inactive or provide limited input

  • Budget and staffing problems

  • Data entry system cumbersome for centers

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ITRD’s Philosophy

• Value of information

  • Concern about making information on Web

  • Lack of URL links

• ITRD emphasis on “ high quality” information

  • Selected in coverage

  • Records screened for its value

  • Limits on resource delays in reviewing material

Slide 16

TRIS’ International Coverage

• TRIS is increasing coverage of more international material

  • Result of feedback from user survey and focus groups

  • TRIS now has agreements with TAC, VTI, ARRB, SWOV for exchange of records.

Slide 17

AVAILABILITY OF TRIS AND ITRD

TRIS Online, TRISWorld, TRIS on Dialog, ITRD on STN, and TRANSPORT

Slide 18

What is in TRIS Online?

• All TRIS produced records

  • Includes TLIB records

  • Environmental Impact Statements

  • International records indexed by TRB

  • Files from TAC, VTI, ARRB, and SWOV

• Does not include any ITRD records
  Updated monthly

Slide 19

What is TRISWorld? (TRB Sponsors)

• All records in TRIS Online

  • TRB indexed records

  • TLIB and EIS records

  • VTI, ARRB, SWOV, TAC records

• English language records from ITRD

  • 112,000 additional records

• Updated daily

• Features requested in focus groups and on survey

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What is TRIS on Dialog

• All of records in TRISWorld

  •  TRB Indexed records

  • TLIB

  • EIS

  • ARRB, SWOV, VTI, TAC

  • Plus English language ITRD

• Update monthly

• No corrections or deletions

• Fee-based system

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What is in ITRD on STN?

• U.S. published material from TRIS selected by ITRD

• No TLIB or EIS records

• All records in ITRD Database

• Updated monthly

• Fee-based system

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What is in TRANSPORT?

• U.S. published records from TRIS

  • Does not include TRIS coverage of international journals

  • Does include TLIB records

• ITRD Database

Slide 23

Future of Access to International Material

• ITRD is undergoing a review

  • Review panel had met several times

  • Draft reports with recommendations

  • ITRD will probably become available on Web (maybe fee based)

• TRIS’ Strategic Plan

  • Draft presented at TRB Annual Meeting

  • Finalizing it and will be available on TRIS’ Webpage

Slide 24

Barbara Post
Phone: (202) 334-2990
E-Mail: bpost@nas.edu