Information Collection; Interagency Generic Clearance for Federal Land Management Agencies Collaborative Visitor Feedback Surveys on Recreation and Transportation Related Programs and Systems, 8429-8431 [2014-02980]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
• Forest Service

[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 29 (Wednesday, February 12, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 8429-8431]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-02980]


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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Forest Service


Information Collection; Interagency Generic Clearance for Federal 
Land Management Agencies Collaborative Visitor Feedback Surveys on 
Recreation and Transportation Related Programs and Systems

ACTION: Notice; request for comment.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the 
Forest Service is seeking comments from all interested individuals and 
organizations on a new generic information collection, Federal Land 
Management Agencies Collaborative Visitor Feedback Surveys on 
Recreation and Transportation Related Programs and Systems.

Participating Agencies

    The following Federal land management agencies are included:
     Department of Agriculture: Forest Service, lead agency;
     Department of the Interior: National Park Service, Fish 
and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, 
and U.S. Geological Survey;
     Department of Defense: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and
     Department of Transportation: Federal Highway 
Administration and Volpe National Transportations Systems Center.

DATES: Comments must be received in writing on or before April 14, 2014 
to be assured of consideration. Comments received after that date will 
be considered to the extent practicable.

ADDRESSES: Comments concerning this notice should be addressed to 
Margaret Petrella, The Volpe Center (RVT-21), 55 Broadway Street, 
Cambridge, MA 02142. All responses to this notice will be summarized 
and included in the request for Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 
approval. All comments will become a matter of public record.
    Comments also may be submitted via facsimile to (617) 494-3522 or 
by email to: Margaret.Petrella@dot.gov.
    The public may inspect comments received at 55 Broadway Street, 
Cambridge, MA 02142 in Room 3-67 during normal business hours. Visitors 
are encouraged to call ahead to 617-

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494-3582 to facilitate entry to the building.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Margaret Petrella, Social Scientist 
U.S. Department of Transportation, The Volpe Center (617) 494-3582.
    Individuals who use telecommunication devices for the deaf (TDD) 
may call the Federal Relay Service (FRS) at 1-800-877-8339, twenty-four 
hours a day, every day of the year, including holidays.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Title: Interagency Generic Clearance for Federal Land Management 
Agencies Collaborative Visitor Feedback Surveys on Recreation and 
Transportation Related Programs and Systems
    OMB Number: 0596-NEW.
    Expiration Date of Approval: Not Applicable.
    Type of Request: New.
    Abstract: From time to time, individual or combined units or 
subunits of various Federal Land Management Agencies (FLMAs) and/or 
FLMA Research Station units need to acquire direct visitor and 
authorized user feedback about site- or area-specific services, 
facilities, road and/or travel systems, needs, programs, demographics, 
management of FLMA lands, and/or other quantitative information on FLMA 
lands in cross-jurisdictional landscapes. FLMAs include, but are not 
limited to: USDA-Forest Service; National Park Service; Bureau of Land 
Management; US Fish & Wildlife Service; US Geological Survey; US Army 
Corps of Engineers; Bureau of Reclamation; and Department of 
Transportation. This direct feedback is vital to establish and/or 
revise goals and objectives for FLMA recreation-related transportation 
system programs to and within FLMA recreation sites/opportunities, to 
inform land management plans, and to facilitate interagency 
coordination across multijurisdictional landscapes, which will better 
meet the needs of the public and the resources under FLMA management.
    The benefits of an FLMA interagency generic Information Collections 
Request (ICR) program would include significant public and agency time 
and cost savings. If multiple FLMAs in an area or landscape work 
jointly on one quantitative visitor feedback information collection 
under a generic clearance from OMB, there would be significant savings 
in government time and costs related to survey development and OMB 
survey approval, as well as savings in the costs of survey 
administration and data processing. In particular, the public burden 
would be diminished as the public would only need to respond to one 
jointly-sponsored survey, instead of to multiple similar surveys at 
multiple units in an area.
    Under the following authorities, the participating FLMAs are 
obligated to actively solicit public input to improve public lands 
management to better serve the public:
    1. Forest Service Administration Organic Act of 1897 [16 U.S.C. 
473-478, 479-482, and 551] as amended by the Transfer Act of 1905 [16 
U.S.C. 472, 524, 554];
    2. Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960 [Pub. L. 86-15, Sec.  
3];
    3. Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources and Planning Act of 
1974 [Pub.L. 93-378 sec. 3(2,3)] as amended;
    4. National Forest Management Act of 1976 [Pub. L. 94-588, secs. 
2(3), 6(d)], as amended;
    5. Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 [Pub. L. 103-62] 
as amended;
    6. Executive Order 12862 of September 11, 1993;
    7. Executive Order 13571 of April 27, 2011.
    8. Executive Act 12996 of March 25, 1996
    9. National Park Services Act of 1916
    10. National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act
    11. National Wildlife Refuge System Centennial Act [Pub. L. 106-
408]
    12. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976
    13. General Survey Act of 1824
    14. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
    Survey respondents would include visitors and potential visitors to 
FLMA units or subunits, and residents of communities near FLMA units. 
Since many of the FLMA surveys are similar in terms of the populations 
being surveyed, the types of questions being asked, the research 
methodologies being used, and the database structures and data being 
utilized, the FLMAs propose a generic Interagency Information 
Collections clearance from OMB to obtain quantitative and/or 
qualitative visitor/user feedback utilizing collection mechanisms such 
as surveys, focus groups, and/or interviews.
    Information collection could occur at one location, several 
locations, across FLMA units, across regions, across the nation, and 
could be multi-jurisdictional at any of these levels. Information 
collection activities could occur once, could occur as iterative 
collections over a limited period of time, or could occur over long 
periods of time at some periodic, planned time interval. Direct visitor 
feedback could be collected through facilitated focus groups or through 
individual interviews (qualitative or quantitative), with either 
electronically-recorded or hand-written responses, via mail, internet, 
or social media electronic surveys, including QL codes on Smartphones. 
Interview information could be collected at pertinent site(s) or access 
point(s) as visitors arrive or complete their visit or are in the midst 
of their activities; and could be collected pre- or post-visit.
    In general, questions will relate to visitor experience at one or 
more specific locations or locales (one FLMA's lands or multi-
jurisdictional) and could address one or more of the following key 
categories, identified as goal areas in FLMA planning documents:

 Mobility and access (for example, different modes used to 
access sites; satisfaction with transportation related services and 
facilities; use and satisfaction with traveler information)
 System management (for example, support for different 
management policies)
 Safety (safety concerns prior or during trip, safety-related 
incidents that occurred)
 Environment (visitor priorities with respect to natural and 
cultural resources; perceptions related to sound)
 Economic development (amount visitors spend within the area)
 Visitor/user demographics (for example, home city and state, 
age group, gender, race, number of people/vehicles in party);
 Trip characteristics (for example, length of trip, trip 
purpose, activities and destinations)

To ensure anonymity, personally-identifiable information (PII) will not 
be stored with contact information at any time, and contact information 
will be purged from researcher files once data collections are complete 
should any PII be collected.
    Participation in surveys will be strictly voluntary. The 
information could be collected by FLMA personnel, private contractors, 
other government agency partners, or universities or other educational 
institutions conducting the information collection on behalf of the 
FLMAs. The data collected would provide managers with reliable 
information to better serve the public by better-informing strategic 
planning, resource allocation, the modification or refinement of 
various program management goals and objectives or management plan 
revisions, and future planning efforts focused on developing more 
effective and efficient delivery of

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program services, whether on one or several unit(s) or at an 
interagency, cross-jurisdictional scope. FLMAs may also receive 
requests for this kind of information from the general public and/or a 
variety of organizations including Congressional staffs, newspapers, 
magazines, and transportation and/or recreational trade organizations.
    Primary analysis of the information could be conducted by FLMA 
staff, by one or more research station(s), by private contractors, 
other government agency partners, or universities or other educational 
institutions doing the analyses on behalf of the FLMA. All results will 
be aggregated so specific responses cannot be correlated to specific 
respondents.
    The information collected, including approved survey instruments, 
final reports, and data will be archived in a shared database that can 
be accessed by all FLMAs. In this way, FLMAs will be kept informed 
about the survey efforts of their partner agencies and can use the 
results to inform the development of their own surveys, thus reducing 
the duplication of effort and public burden. In addition, analyzed data 
could be shared among other agencies, stakeholders, educational 
institutions, interested parties, or the public through written or 
electronic reports. FLMA units will use this information to inform 
strategic planning, resource allocation, program management goals and 
objectives revisions, Land Management Plan revisions, and long-range 
planning with statistically-reliable, visitor input data necessary to 
help FLMA units provide their customers with better service and 
coordinate more effectively across jurisdictions.
    FLMAs have not previously conducted joint, integrated direct 
feedback information collections across units, areas, states, regions, 
or landscapes. As a result, FLMAs have not been able to implement 
coordinated, multi-agency recreation transportation system planning, or 
coordinated facility and service planning and design. Without these 
joint, coordinated information collections, the FLMAs will continue to 
lack the information necessary to identify and implement feasible and 
publicly-accepted transportation and other facility and service 
improvements to help protect public land resources and enhance visitor 
experience. These joint information collections will become ever more 
important as FLMA budgets continue to shrink and demand for access to 
FLMA recreation sites and opportunities continue to grow. These 
information collections will directly impact FLMA resources and visitor 
experience quality, and help the FLMAs meet their various resource, 
recreation, and transportation management mandates.
    Estimate of Annual Burden: Under a generic ICR program, the number 
of respondents will differ for each individual survey, depending on the 
purpose and design of each information collection. Therefore, the 
number of respondents is necessarily an estimate. The number of 
responses can be estimated as approximately 70% of the number of 
respondents approached, based on previous administrations of similar 
surveys in various FLMA units. Respondents will be asked to respond 
only one time. Overall, we assume 1800 respondents per survey effort, 
10 respondents per focus group effort and 500 comment cards per comment 
card effort. The burden of time to respond one time will vary, 
depending on the methodology employed. Surveys are estimated at 
approximately 20 minutes per person, based on previous administrations 
of similar surveys in various FLMA units, while comment cards are 
estimated at 3 minutes per person, and focus groups are estimated at 90 
minutes per person.
    Type of Respondents: Visitors, potential visitors, or residents of 
lands managed by one FLMA or by multiple FLMAs in cross-jurisdictional 
landscapes (for example, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, 
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service).
    Estimated Annual Number of Respondents: 72,000.
    Estimated Annual Number of Responses per Respondent: One.
    Estimated Burden per Response: 25 minutes.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden on Respondents: 30,000 hours.
    Comment is invited: Comment is invited on: (1) Whether this 
collection of information is necessary for the stated purposes and the 
proper performance of the functions of the FLMAs, including whether the 
information will have practical or scientific utility; (2) the accuracy 
of the FLMAs' estimate of the burden of the collection of information, 
including the validity of the assumptions used; (3) ways to enhance the 
quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and 
(4) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on 
respondents, including the use of automated, electronic, mechanical, or 
other technological collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology.
    All comments received in response to this notice, including names 
and addresses when provided, will be a matter of public record. 
Comments will be summarized and included in the submission request 
toward Office of Management and Budget approval.

    Dated: February 4, 2014.
James M. Pena,
Associate Deputy Chief, National Forest System.
[FR Doc. 2014-02980 Filed 2-11-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3411-15-P