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Approximately 18 months ago I asked Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) for emissions data for a paper that I was writing for a continuing education course.  The objective of the paper was to test the assertion that public transport reduces significantly air pollution in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.    DART gave me the information that I requested, i.e. ridership numbers for each bus, light rail, and commuter rail line, in Excel spreadsheets.  In addition, they shared with me information about the emissions generated by their vehicles, contracts for green energy, diesel fuel contracts, EPA compliance measures, etc.  They even provided the information that they had gathered about the social composition of their riders.  Information regarding the vehicles, including availability, seating and standing capacity, age, cost, etc. was available on the DART Webpage.  Subsequently, I ask DART management for a clarification of some of this information.  They responded positively to every request.    Before one assumes that a public corporation or government agency will not provide appropriate information, he or she should ask for it.  Doing so nicely can frequently produce a good outcome.  Public corporations and quasi governmental organizations are required by law to make their key financial data available to the public.  They are not, however, required to make their operations data available, although many of them do so.Information costs money.  My employer, which was a large electric utility, employed hundreds of accountants to generate reams of financial and operation data.  The salaries and overheads associated with these employees ran into the millions of dollars.  Because my employer was an investor owned electric utility, which subjected it to oversight by the Texas Public Utility Commission, we were required to provide more data to the public than was required of most businesses.  In fact, we oftentimes were required to provide more data than state agencies.Amtrak, as an example, has to weigh the cost of generating the data, i.e. equipment status information, against the utility of the information.  Who is going to use it?  For what?  How will the data impact management decisions?  Is making the information public relevant to the operation of the business?  If making the information available five days after the end of the month would have no impact on management's decisions, or it would be used by very few people, then the results would not justify the additional cost.  And management would be correct in not incurring it to generate the information.
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