GOTHAM Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q. Is Gotham going away?

A. No. Gotham is being enhanced with new capabilities. The first set of enhanced reports, are now available; other reports will be enhanced and released at a later date.

Q. How do I access Gotham?

A. You can continue to access GOTHAM the same way, the options that exist are as follows:

• If you are on the FMCSA network, you can continue to access Gotham by going to http://gotham.fmcsa.dot.gov. You are not currently required to login.
• To access Gotham when your aren't on the FMCSA network, go to A&I Online (http://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov). You will be required to login using an active FMCSA Portal account or an active UAS account. Once logged in, click "Gotham Reports" from the A&I Home page.
• FMCSA Portal account users: When logged into the FMCSA Portal, select "A&I" from the "Available FMCSA Systems" box, then click "Gotham Reports" on the A&I home page. If you do not see "A&I" in the "Available FMCSA Systems" box, you must request the role from your approver. To do so, click: "Accounts" and select "My Profile." Choose the "Existing Systems" tab, then request the "A&I — Enforcement User" system role. Your approver should approve receive your request in a short amount of time.

Q. Where are the Gotham reports located?

A. The GOTHAM home page provides access to all of the GOTHAM reports available to assist FMCSA personnel in managing their safety programs. When accessing the Gotham home page, you will be introduced to a new navigation bar (on the left-hand side of the screen) containing a detailed list of the various Gotham reports available.

The Analysis Division has begun updating these reports with enhanced features and formatting. Updated reports are organized under new reports headings such as "Prioritization Reports" "Carrier Registration" and "New Entrants" to make it easier to find the specific data you are looking for. As new reports are added, the navigation bar will be expanded to include these updated reports.

Reports that have not yet been updated are available under "Original Reports." You can continue to access these reports through the familiar Gotham interface until they have been enhanced and moved to the new format. Reports that have been updated and moved to the new Gotham report format are indicated with the "updated" label.

Q. How have Gotham reports changed?

A. FMCSA is focused on delivering consistent information as we enhance GOTHAM. Some of the features provided for every report are:

• Consistent Navigation — Updated and enhanced reports are located in the Navigation bar on the left-hand side of the screen. Reports that have not been updated are located under "Original Reports".
• Users may customize all updated and enhanced reports.
• Report Customization — Report Overview — explains the purpose of each report, how the data can be selected or filtered, and descriptions of all of the data contained within.
• PDF Creation — allows users to generate a printable PDF copy of a report, including all report customizations.
• Excel Spreadsheet Creation — allows users to create an Excel spreadsheet containing all customized report data. Macros are no longer required to use Excel spreadsheets! Auto-filter is already enabled with the spreadsheets to ease data manipulation.
• Mapping Features — creates a county-by-county view of the location of carriers within a selected state, based on report filters. Clicking on cities and towns will produce a map pin-pointing their location.
• Sorting Columns — Clicking on a column title will sort the report data by that column in ascending order. Clicking that column title again will sort the data in descending order.
• Add/Remove Columns — You may not want to view all of the default information that is displayed when generating your reports. Use the Add/Remove Columns feature to customize your report. If you generate a printable PDF copy or an Excel spreadsheet, your customization will be retained.
• Data refresh date — located at the bottom of every report. All reports will be updated on a weekly basis except for the SI assignments will be updated real-time using the live MCMIS database.

Q. What reports are in the new format?

A. Nine reports have been enhanced and updated during this initial update:

• 4 Prioritization reports:
  • SafeStat List — contains the SafeStat information on carriers as well as the Passenger Bump-up and J-list.
  • Conditional Carriers — listing of carriers that had a conditional or unsatisfactory rating for their previous compliance review.
  • MCSIP Required Action — also contains the Passenger Bump-up and J-list.
  • Carrier Out-of-Service (OOS) — find carriers that are under an OOS order, and that have activity following an OOS order.
• 4 Carrier Registration reports: Find carriers either domiciled in your State or that your division would investigate (OIC) for:
  • Passenger Carriers — search for passenger carriers based on size, and operating/insurance requirements.
  • Household Goods (HHG) Carriers — search for interstate and intrastate HHG carriers.
  • Hazardous Materials (HM) Carriers/Shippers — can also search by type of hazardous material carried or shipped.
  • Carriers with Inappropriate Activity — inactive/registrants/non-carriers with activity, intrastate carriers with interstate activity.
• 1 New Entrants report:
  • Inventory — Find the national, service center and state totals of new entrant carriers, and lists for each state on new entrant carriers.

Q. When will the rest of the reports be converted to the new format?

A. There will be two more phases of work to finish integrating Gotham into the new format.

• Release 2 in September 2009 will incorporate the Contacts/Field Roster, Budget Performance and HM Dashboard as well as Safety Program Reports used to track reviews, enforcements, and inspections.
• Release 3 in January 2010 will contain the performance reports, such as SI/Inspector performance, IPASS, DPASS, and Auditor activity.

Q. What changes are going on with A&I?

A. We've updated the A&I User Interface!

FMCSA's Analysis & Information Online (A&I) website, sponsored by the Analysis Division (MC-RRA), supported over 3.3 million user sessions during FY 2008. The website provides a broad spectrum of motor carrier related safety data and analysis and has been serving Federal and State enforcement staff, motor carriers and the general public with constantly updated Federal and State collected safety data since 1998.

In the decade since its release, web users' data needs have grown significantly and there have been dramatic advancements in the tools and technologies available to web developers to meet this demand.

As a result, the A&I development team has embarked on an extensive update of the site which includes both the user interface and underlying database system.

The improvements will be released in phases with the current release including the site's "Home", "What’s New", "Contacts" and other static support pages and the A&I Data page. Additional releases are planned on a monthly basis over the coming year.

The planned enhancements include:

• FMCSA's standard interface design
• A new, more expansive home page with more direct links to A&I's data modules
• Consistent use of navigation, expanded report filtering and new functionality
• More frequent updates to reports and their underlying data

Q. What if I need a new report RIGHT NOW?

A. We will continue to take requests for new reports and options on Gotham and A&I. Please contact Scott Valentine (scott.valentine@dot.gov) or Dennis Piccolo (dennis.piccolo@dot.gov) and we can discuss how best to handle your request. We can usually respond quickly to minor modifications to a report, but there are additional steps that we need to go through in order to get new development done that has a significant impact on time/work to be done. We will work with you to in order to meet your needs. But this may mean handling this as a data request through the DART Team (datarequests@dot.gov) as an intermediary step until we can implement an automated report through Gotham.