49 U.S.C. § 5335: National transit database

To help meet the needs of individual public transportation systems, the United States Government, State and local governments, and the public for information on which to base public transportation service planning, the Secretary shall maintain a reporting system, using uniform categories to accumulate public transportation financial, operating, geographic service area coverage, and asset condition information and using a uniform system of accounts. The reporting and uniform systems shall contain appropriate information to help any level of government make a public sector investment decision. The Secretary may request and receive appropriate information from any source. The Secretary may award a grant under section 5307 or 5311 only if the applicant, and any person that will receive benefits directly from the grant, are subject to the reporting and uniform systems. any information relating to a transit asset inventory or condition assessment conducted by the recipient; any data on assaults on transit workers of the recipients; and any data on fatalities that result from an impact with a bus. develop and implement appropriate internal control activities to ensure that public transportation safety incident data is reported accurately and reliably by public transportation systems and State safety oversight agencies to the State Safety Oversight Rail Accident Database; and report to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives within 1 year of enactment of the Federal Public Transportation Act of 2012 [see section 3(a), (b) of Pub. L. 112–141 , set out as Effective and Termination Dates of 2012 Amendment notes under section 101 of Title 23 , Highways] on the steps taken to improve the accuracy and reliability of public transportation safety incident data reported to the State Safety Oversight Rail Accident Database.”