One of the things I like to track is how are people using
the CTPP and the NHTS. Here are a few new applications!
The January 2007 issue of Geoworld www.geoplace.com includes an article
about a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) project conducted by Los Alamos
National Laboratory on simulating the spread of pandemic influenza. This
model uses the tract-to-tract home-to-work flow data from CTPP2000 Part 3,
along with long distance trip information from 2001 NHTS. The article notes
that “previous epidemic models created in the 1970s were based on a
single community model without spatial information.”
Oak Ridge National Labs is conducting a project for
Transportation Security Administration where CTPP2000 Part 2 (workplace)
at the block group and TAZ level is part of the equation for estimating daytime
and nighttime populations. After placing workers at work locations,
they distribute school age students to schools, colleges and universities, and
others to hospitals. They use the NHTS data for estimating populations
who stay at home. They currently do not try to model individual trips to
shopping or other retail destinations. For more information, please
contact Pat Hu at hups@ornl.gov
Cities21 has been mapping labor market sheds using the
CTPP2000 Part 2 data for an Environmental Protection Agency study
“Transforming Office Parks into Transit Villages.” They
have identified 17 San Francisco Bay Area suburban major employment
centers. Each center has at least 15,000 jobs. http://www.cities21.org/BABPC/
For more information, please contact Steve Raney at cities21@cities21.org.
One of the reasons that I’ve heard that CTPP2000 has
been used in these studies is that there is nationwide coverage with small
geographic detail, and that it is “free.” But it isn’t
free! The CTPP for 1990 and 2000 have been special tabulations
commissioned by the transportation data community, particularly the State DOTs
and MPOs via an AASHTO consolidated purchase. There have been
discussions in the past about whether or not to charge for copies of data, but
most recently, with the CTPP2000, it was decided that setting up charging and
reimbursement systems would not be worthwhile. That is why the data were
distributed FIRST to the State DOTs and MPOs who paid for the data products,
but also why there are no licensing agreements on use and distribution of the
data. One of the contributions from BTS for the CTPP2000 was to
provide public on-line data access through the TranStats webpage and the “bookstore”
for CD distribution.
If you are doing some interesting work using the CTPP,
please share it here on the CTPP listserv, or contact me at Elaine.murakami@fhwa.dot.gov and
we can discuss an article for a future issue of the CTPP Status Report. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ctpp/status.htm
The January 2007 issue is now available.
Elaine Murakami
FHWA Office of Planning
206-220-4460 (in