We (the royal "we") are interested in personal travel patterns, for a
variety of transportation planning applications. The CTPP program will
provide home-to-work origin-destination tables using multiple years of
surveys from the American Community Survey. But, other data sources
should be examined for their potential to augment the CTPP, for small
area origin-destination matrices. For example, many of you are aware of
my interest in using multi-day GPS. Each data source, including ACS
and the CTPP, has its own benefits and limitations. One of the datasets
of interest is the LEHD OntheMap "home-to-work" flows.
We would like to encourage more analysis and evaluation of the LEHD
OnTheMap data. While the LEHD OnTheMap interface is a user-friendly
web-based software http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/ , we believe that
transportation planners will be more interested in the potential of the
synthetic block data records (10 implicates are created in the data
synthesis process) to examine the origin/destination flow results.
These data are available for download on the Cornell University Virtual
Data Center.
I asked Laura McWethy at Cambridge Systematics to prepare some
documentation on the files, to make it easier for others to examine this
data. It is attached.
Caveats:
The files are large since they represent block-to-block pairs.
The data are synthetic. This is the first synthetic data product
approved by the Census Bureau's Disclosure Review Board. Data synthesis
is used to protect individual confidentiality.
The universe of workers (workers covered by unemployment insurance)
differs from "all workers"
You should take the time to understand the data sources and synthetic
data processes used to generate these results.
We are interested in your tests of the LEHD OnTheMap block level data.
I hope that Nathan Erlbaum and Aaron Westcott of New York State DOT will
share the results of their work on county-to-county flows.
Introductory material on LEHD OnTheMap is available through a recorded
presentation from the TRB Planning Applications conference in Houston
http://teachamerica.com/APP09/ (go to the Sunday session and look for
DATA), and also at the LEHD OnTheMap home page
http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/ .
Elaine Murakami
FHWA Office of Planning (Wash DC)
206-220-4460 (in Seattle)
Hello all
(Please forgive me if you have already received this information from
another source.)
Attached is a Call for Abstracts for the next Tools of the Trade
Conference. The Conference focuses on transportation planning topics and
tools for small and medium-sized areas. The conference will be held in
September 2010, in historic Williamsburg, VA.
Please review the topics listed in the Call and consider submitting an
abstract about work conducted in your area or by your agency that would
be of interest to others across the country.
In addition, please forward this Call to anyone that you think might be
interested in submitting an abstract or in attending the conference. Our
committee website has additional information and can be accessed at the
following link:
http://www.trbtoolsofthetrade.org/conference.html.
Jerry Everett
Research Director
Center for Transportation Research
Suite 309 Conference Building
600 Henley Street
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
(865) 974-8275
I will be out of the office starting 08/07/2009 and will not return until
08/24/2009.
If you need immediate assistance please see one of the following people
during my absence.
August 7
Melissa Chiu 7H484F 3-2421.
August 10 -August 14
Kin Koerber 7H486E 3-7620
August 17-August 21
Melissa Chiu 7H484F 3-2421
For all CTPP-related matters please see Melissa Chiu.
I am out of the office until 08/17/2009.
I will respond to your message when I return.
Note: This is an automated response to your message "RE: [CTPP] TAZ
Development" sent on 8/11/2009 9:28:39 AM.
This is the only notification you will receive while this person is
away.
I must admit that, of late, I have gotten lost in the woods while trying to see all the trees. During these past months I have been engaged in developing a new TAZ system for the Minneapolis - St. Paul MPO area that will both serve the needs of travel demand modeling here at the Metropolitan Council AND provide us with the information we want from a 2010 CTPP-like product.
This new TAZ system is substantially more refined than those of the past and should result in reasonable travel loadings on our arterial roadway network. However, certain issues have been raising their knobby heads regarding zone size that probably will clash with Census Disclosure Board rules. Does anyone have a reasonable idea as to what minimum population or household levels a TAZ will need to attain in order to circumvent large numbers of "blank" cells? I suspect that there is not an easy, uncomplicated answer but would like to hear one nonetheless.
Bob Paddock
Transportation Planning
Metropolitan Council
Bob.paddock(a)metc.state.mn.us
651 / 602-1340
I will be on vacation from August 10 through Sept 3, 2009.
If you need immediate help please contact:
Tanya Rodriguez at 212-383-2516 (trodriguez(a)dot.state.ny.us)
Munnesh Patel at 212-383-2528 (mpatel(a)dot.state.ny.us)
Jorge Argote, P.E.
Manager, Travel Surveys Unit
Technical Group
NY Metropolitan Transportation Council
199 Water Street, New York, NY 10038
Tel: (212) 383-2527; Fax: (212) 383-2418
jargote(a)dot.state.ny.us
I will be on vacation from August 10 through Sept 3, 2009.
If you need immediate help please contact:
Tanya Rodriguez at 212-383-2516 (trodriguez(a)dot.state.ny.us)
Munnesh Patel at 212-383-2528 (mpatel(a)dot.state.ny.us)
Jorge Argote, P.E.
Manager, Travel Surveys Unit
Technical Group
NY Metropolitan Transportation Council
199 Water Street, New York, NY 10038
Tel: (212) 383-2527; Fax: (212) 383-2418
jargote(a)dot.state.ny.us
The seminar I went to two years ago seemed to indicate minimum TAZ size in the range of 1200 people (again, pop or employment or combination). The issue is that in most areas transit accounts for 0.5-1.5% of the mode split and if you want to keep from having that data suppressed you will need to have that many people in it. I was told that suppression usually will occur when the real value is 3 or less, but true integer value reporting doesn't start until the real value is more than 10 (I think...it's been 2 years). The problem then becomes that area totals over several TAZ's are way off because you are adding "rounded" numbers rather than real numbers.
I suspect that the real question will have to do with which data set you are going to use. If you are going to try to use the ACS 1 year aggregate you really need large TAZ's. They say they are not going to suppress as much in the 3 year aggregate and may not suppress anything in the 5 year (at least for category totals).
As a modeler, this drives me completely crazy. To get the network to load well, you need to have the TAZ size and connections that are appropriate relative to the geography and roadway network. If you're dealing with a subdivision with 500 houses and one or two driveways the 1200 people limit is fine. If you're dealing with a city block with single family units, you've got a real problem.
One way to get around this (thinking out loud) is to take an area with a relatively uniform density and report that area as a whole as a census TAZ. Then when you get the data back, you can split that TAZ proportionately for your model's sake. Most travel demand models are only accurate enough to get you lane calls anyway so making some internal estimates from the Census data will keep you away from suppression issues and not adversely impact your accuracy. It will take a little data massaging on the back end but it may be worth it, especially in areas with dense roadway network connections.
Patricia C. Tice, PE, AICP, LEED AP
Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, Inc.
120 N. Orange Ave
Orlando, FL 34787
407-284-4753