F-20 Report - Capital Expenses

Overview

• Project Classes 
• Project Categories 
• Predominant Use 
• Purchased Transportation capital projects 

The F-20 Report shows what was used out of federal funds for Improvement for Existing Service or the Expansion of New Service, as well as the Total of Capital. The data can be filtered by a Fiscal Year.

The Rehabilitation/Reconstruction/Replacement/Improvement for Existing Service table at the very top lists expenses amounts organized in several columns: Guideway, Passenger Stations, Administrative Buildings, Maintenance Buildings, Revenue Vehicles, Service Vehicles, Fare Collection Equipment, etc. 

Project Classes

• There are two classes of capital projects:
  Improvements relating to existing transit services through rehabilitation, reconstruction, or replacement of capital
• Capital for expansion of service (e.g., LR line extension), implementing new services (e.g., new mode of service), or building a new facility to accommodate planned services

Improvements for Existing Transit Services

Transit agencies typically improve existing transit services by replacing obsolete vehicles, equipment, buildings, and structures. Typical projects include replacing an obsolete garage, replacing vehicles, overhauling rail passenger cars, re-roofing a maintenance facility, or rehabilitating a bus.
Transit agencies also improve existing transit services by extending the useful lives of existing vehicles, equipment, buildings, and structures. If the improvement extends the useful life of these assets beyond one year and/or the costs of the rebuild materially increases the value of the asset beyond the book value, the agency must report the rehabilitation / reconstruction / replacement / improvement costs as capital expenses.

Expansion of Transit Service

Expansion of service projects cover capital projects related to the expansion of existing
services or the operations of new services. Examples include the following:

• The extension of a rail line
• Starting a new mode of service
• Purchase of additional buses for new routes in developing areas
• Construction of an additional maintenance facility for planned expansions of service

Transit agencies can only report expenses for capital projects as expansion projects if they have committed plans to implement new services. If there are no committed plans, then the project expenses must be reported as improvements for existing transit services.
A capital project may have elements of both improvements and expansion. In these cases, transit agencies must allocate the project to both project classifications. 

Project Categories

Once an agency identifies the appropriate capital project class to use, it must separate data into project categories. Transit agencies must define and separate costs for each project category.
The NTD uses the following project categories:

• Guideway (6100)
• Passenger stations (6200)
• Administrative buildings (6300)
• Maintenance buildings (6400)
• Revenue vehicles (6500)
• Service vehicles (nonrevenue) (6600)
• Fare revenue collection equipment (6700)
• Communications and information systems (6800)
• Other (6900)

Capital projects include equipment and furniture integral to buildings and structures.

Predominant Use

Some capital projects apply to more than one mode or TOS or project category. Transit agencies must report a capital project based on the predominant use. Agencies determine predominant use for mode and TOS in the following ways:

• Identifying the primary reason why the project was constructed or acquired.
• Using a reasonable measure to determine the predominant use, such as:
  • The relative number of passengers served by mode or TOS for passenger
    facilities.
  • The square footage of, or the number of revenue vehicles serviced by, nonpassenger facilities, such as maintenance garages.

Purchased Transportation

Transit agencies must report capital expenditures the agency makes to provide transit service. This includes capital expenditures for both DO and PT services (even if the agency does not retain ownership of the purchased asset). However, if the transit agency’s contractor purchases capital during the year using its own funds, the transit agency should not report these capital costs.
Most transit agencies report purchased transportation services. However, there are unusual cases where the buyer and seller report separately to the NTD. In these cases, agencies report capital data.