Examination of Cluster measurements has revealed the presence of traveling compression regions (TCRs) in the lobes of the Earth's magnetotail at X ~ -11--19 RE. These TCRs strongly resemble those observed in the more distant tail, but their mean duration is only ~35 s as compared with ~160 s for the TCRs in the distant tail. Furthermore, the Bz variations associated with the Cluster TCRs were found to be south-then-north (SN) in 80% of the cases as opposed to the north-then-south (NS) polarity that is dominant beyond X ~ -30 RE. Analysis of the time of arrival of the TCRs at the different Cluster spacecraft showed that all of the SN TCRs propagate earthward while all of the NS TCRs, as expected, move tailward. The mean speeds of the SN and NS TCRs were essentially the same, 849 km/s and 821 km/s, respectively, and their average width was 4.3 RE. Some examples of near-periodic, multiple TCR events with separations between individual TCRs comparable to their width were also observed, suggestive of multiple X-line reconnection or periodic impulsive reconnection. However, the most probable separation observed during multi-TCR events was larger, ~100--150 s. The TCR minimum variance eigenvectors have a strong tendency to lie parallel to the GSM XY plane, but they exhibit a wide range of orientations within that plane. Examined as a function of the YGSM, there are broad maxima in occurrence frequency, width, and speed of TCRs on the duskside of the tail. Superposed epoch analysis of the Kyoto World Data Center Quick Look AL Index relative to the time of TCR occurrence shows that the compression regions tend to be observed during the expansion phase of substorms. Finally, the origins of the traveling compression regions in the near-tail are discussed in terms of the effects of magnetic flux rope motion and impulsive reconnection.