Hi! Susan,

Yes, I did and tried refreshing my memory by going through Q29 to Q45 on ACS questionnaire. Still don’t have a clear idea about how to define a commuter. Like when we said “ Of the 128 million commuters in 2000, almost 100 million were in nonmetropolitan areas…”, who were those commuters and how they responded to census (ACS) questionnaire to be categorized as commuters.

Hope this question makes sense to you all.

Thanks!

Juyin

From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Gorski, Susan (MDOT)
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2014 2:51 PM
To: ctpp-news@chrispy.net; ctpp-news@ryoko.chrispy.net
Subject: Re: [CTPP] What defines a commuter?

Not sure if you read CIA 2013 Brief 2 (http://traveltrends.transportation.org/Documents/B2_CIA_Role%20Overall%20Travel_web_2.pdf )  This gives a nice description of the complexities of commuting.

From: ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces@chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Chen, Ju-Yin (VDOT)
Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2014 2:33 PM
To: ctpp-news@ryoko.chrispy.net
Subject: [CTPP] What defines a commuter?

Hi! All,

I got an interesting question from our management.

They want to know if we can define a commuter by how many work trips this particular person make during certain period of time (a day, a week or a year).

The simple definition I found online to describe a commuter is “a person who travels some distance to work on a regular basis.”

This brings up two basic questions:

1. How do we determine “some distance”?

2. How do we determine “regular basis”?

I could not find a clear definition regarding commuter in Commuting in America III though we talked about commuter population throughout the report.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated!

Juyin (roo-een) Chen, AICP
Travel Demand Modeling Coordinator
Virginia Department of Transportation
Transportation & Mobility Planning Division
P +1-804-225-3564

F +1-804-225-4785
http://www.virginiadot.org/vtm/