Here is the first draft of guidance for monitoring indicator 9.1.2, as of 18/12/2019. Please send comments to BlackburnA@un.org. 

Country Comments

Belarus

Croatia

Moldova

Norway

Slovenia

United States

• In the United States road tkm are on a territorial basis (which is why USA has not reported tkm in the common questionnaire for some years). Some politicians in the United States are currently proposing a vehicle-miles traveled tax.  If such a proposal where to be enacted and implemented, then at that point we would likely be able to report some data based on residency.  But such a situation, if it were to occur, is at least a few years away, especially as several states currently have no annual safety inspection, and thus no requirement to collect odometer data. 
• I don’t understand the comment near the top of page 4 that “tracking transport volumes … can at least indicate whether current infrastructure is providing sufficient capacity.”  Transport volumes can only be a good measure of whether capacity is sufficient when combined with other data, such as the amount of road or rail mileage. 
• A measure of the percent of travel accomplished by sustainable transportation, such as low or no emission vehicles, or a measure of sustainable transportation vehicle sales would be a better fit than passenger or freight volumes with the sustainable development goals.  
• I don’t agree with the first sentence of 4.2: Inland Passengers.   In a country that has a large area, such as the United States, there can be a huge amount of passenger-km by the air mode.  In the United States, the number of domestic passenger-km by air is over 100 times the number of passenger-km by Amtrak (our long distance train system).  At a minimum, replace the word “typically” with “often”.

World Bank/SUM4ALL