specification: FinOps Framework
specificationVersion: '1.0'
alignedWith:
  framework: FinOps Foundation Framework
  frameworkUrl: https://www.finops.org/framework/
  dataSpec: FOCUS
  dataSpecVersion: '1.3'
  dataSpecUrl: https://focus.finops.org/focus-specification/v1-3/
provider: Department of Transportation
providerId: department-of-transportation
publisherName: U.S. Department of Transportation
serviceCategory: Federal Government / Public Open Data
created: '2026-05-04'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-04, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-05'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Federal Government
  - Transportation
  - Open Data
  - FinOps
  - FOCUS
description: 'FOCUS-aligned FinOps for Department of Transportation public APIs: zero-cost public data
  services, funded through congressional appropriations rather than per-call billing. FinOps practice
  for consumers centers on operational cost (egress, caching, downstream storage, VIN-decode and recall-lookup
  compute) rather than provider invoice cost.'
sources:
  - https://www.transportation.gov/digitalstrategy/datadissemination
  - https://api.data.gov/
principles:
  - name: Visibility
    description: Track NHTSA Vehicle Safety consumption against the api.data.gov developer-account dashboard
      and headers (X-RateLimit-Remaining); for vPIC, FMCSA, FAA, BTS, FRA, FTA, and PHMSA, observe consumer-side
      request volume since DOT issues no usage statements.
  - name: Allocation
    description: Allocate consumer-side cost to the consuming workload (recall lookups, VIN decoding,
      motor-carrier compliance, transit analytics). There are no provider charges to allocate.
  - name: Optimization
    description: Cache vPIC VIN decodes (results are stable per VIN); pull recall data on a weekly cadence
      rather than realtime polling; download FRA / FTA / BTS / PHMSA bulk datasets instead of iterating
      record-by-record; throttle airport-status polling to once per minute or less.
  - name: Accountability
    description: Each consuming team owns its consumer-side cost; data stewards within the consuming organization
      track which DOT datasets are in use and refresh schedules.
domains:
  - name: Understand Usage and Cost
    capabilities:
      - Data Ingestion
      - Allocation
      - Reporting and Analytics
      - Anomaly Management
  - name: Quantify Business Value
    capabilities:
      - Planning and Estimating
      - Forecasting
      - Benchmarking
      - Unit Economics
  - name: Optimize Usage and Cost
    capabilities:
      - Workload Optimization
      - Rate Optimization
      - Architecting for Cloud
  - name: Manage the FinOps Practice
    capabilities:
      - FinOps Education and Enablement
      - Onboarding Workloads
billingModel:
  pricingCategory: Free / Public Data
  billingFrequency: N/A
  billingCurrency: USD
  chargeCategories:
    - Usage
  chargeFrequency: N/A
focusColumns:
  ServiceName: DOT Public APIs
  ServiceCategory: Federal Government / Public Open Data
  ProviderName: U.S. Department of Transportation
  PublisherName: U.S. Department of Transportation
  InvoiceIssuerName: N/A (no invoice issued)
  PricingCategory: Free
  PricingUnit: request
  BillingCurrency: USD
  ChargeCategory: Usage
meters:
  - name: api_requests
    description: Public API requests (consumer-side count)
    unit: request
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - api
      - endpoint
      - bureau
      - consumer
  - name: data_egress
    description: Bytes downloaded from DOT endpoints (consumer-side metric)
    unit: GB
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - api
      - bureau
  - name: vin_decodes
    description: VIN-decode lookups against NHTSA vPIC
    unit: request
    aggregation: sum
    dimensions:
      - consumer
apis:
  - name: NHTSA vPIC API
    baseURL: https://vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov/api
    tags:
      - NHTSA
      - VIN
      - Vehicles
    serviceName: NHTSA vPIC API
    serviceCategory: API
  - name: NHTSA Vehicle Safety API
    baseURL: https://api.nhtsa.gov
    tags:
      - NHTSA
      - Recalls
      - Safety
    serviceName: NHTSA Vehicle Safety API
    serviceCategory: API
  - name: FMCSA QCMobile API
    baseURL: https://mobile.fmcsa.dot.gov/qc/services
    tags:
      - FMCSA
      - Motor Carriers
    serviceName: FMCSA QCMobile API
    serviceCategory: API
  - name: FAA Airport Status API
    baseURL: https://soa.smext.faa.gov/asws/api/airport
    tags:
      - FAA
      - Aviation
      - Airports
    serviceName: FAA Airport Status API
    serviceCategory: API
  - name: Bureau of Transportation Statistics Data Portal
    baseURL: https://www.bts.gov/
    tags:
      - BTS
      - Statistics
    serviceName: Bureau of Transportation Statistics Data Portal
    serviceCategory: API
  - name: Federal Railroad Administration Safety Data
    baseURL: https://railroads.dot.gov/
    tags:
      - FRA
      - Rail
    serviceName: Federal Railroad Administration Safety Data
    serviceCategory: API
  - name: Federal Transit Administration National Transit Database
    baseURL: https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd
    tags:
      - FTA
      - Transit
    serviceName: Federal Transit Administration National Transit Database
    serviceCategory: API
  - name: PHMSA Pipeline Safety Data
    baseURL: https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/
    tags:
      - PHMSA
      - Pipelines
    serviceName: PHMSA Pipeline Safety Data
    serviceCategory: API
unitEconomics:
  - name: Consumer Cost per 1K Requests
    metric: consumer_side_cost / (api_requests / 1000)
  - name: Cache-Hit Ratio for VIN Decode
    metric: vin_cache_hits / vin_decodes
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com