Request for Letters of Interest - Papers - Applying Census Data for Transportation
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), is a
nonprofit, nonpartisan association representing highway and transportation departments in
the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Our primary goal is to foster
the development, operation, and maintenance of an integrated national transportation
system. The Census Transportation Planning Products Program (CTPP) is a Technical Service
Program of AASHTO. The CTPP is seeking letters of interest for the preparation of
commissioned papers and presentation of those papers at an upcoming conference.
In November 2017, AASHTO CTPP and the Transportation Research Board (TRB), are hosting a
conference; Applying Census Data for Transportation.
Qualified authors are sought to prepare four commissioned papers. The papers will be
presented at the conference and used to assist the CTPP in the development of future
products. Four separate paper topics have been identified and are presented below.
1. TAZs - How do we move forward? TAZs have been a part of the CTPP/UTPP data product
since the inception of the tabulation. However, over time TAZs have become very costly to
produce, redundant with other geographies and confusing in their structure. This paper
will take an objective look at the CTPP TAZs and produce an assessment of the issues
surrounding the continued production of TAZs for Census data. This assessment shall
include examination of TAZ costs, their usefulness/utility, and data quality. The paper
shall also discuss the other geographies that exist, and the pros and cons of continuing
to use TAZ geography. This paper will help frame the discussion for future TAZ requests.
2. Workplace Data - Achieving its potential. Workplace data is one the keystones of the
CTPP/UTPP data products that separate it from all other standard Census data products.
While the workplace data has been available since the first (1970) UTPP, the Oversight
Board believes that this data is underutilized. To help remedy that situation this paper
will discuss the myriad uses of workplace data beginning with examples from current
applications, and include perspectives of other possible uses of the data.
3. Keeping the Census data relevant. The data landscape is changing in terms of both data
availability and the demands for new and more types of data. New data from sources such as
mobile devices, GPS, social media and crowd-sourcing expand the possibilities of data
collection and analysis. This paper will explore how Census data
(CTPP, ACS, LEHD) relates to these emerging and evolving data sets. Will Census data stay
relevant? Can Census data be combined or integrated with these private data sets? Can
Census data answer the policy questions of tomorrow?
4. Supporting Transportation Performance Management and Metrics with Census data.
Transportation Performance Management (TPM) and Metrics are an ever increasing component
our transportation decision and policy processes. As these TPM processes mature Census
data will likely be used to support them. This paper will describe the best uses of ACS
and CTPP data to support different TPM activities. The importance of the Census data and
the need for guidance on consistent data uses should be emphasized.
The Conference Planning Team will select one author or team of authors per topic. Anyone
may submit a Letter of Interest that demonstrates expertise in the topic area, and an
author commitment to attend the conference to present the work. Authors must submit a
separate Letter of Interest for each topic they wish to develop. TRB and the CTPP will
retain all rights to publish the papers in the conference proceedings and will provide
proper citation to the author. Selected authors will work with two Conference Planning
Committee members who will provide direction and support for the development of each
paper. Papers should be between 12 to 15 pages in length, but may be shorter or longer
depending on content. Funding (up to $8,500 per paper), is available to cover conference
travel, registration expenses and a stipend for producing the paper. Authors who are
unable to accept the funding may still submit Letters of Interest and will be considered
viable contenders.
Letters of Interest shall demonstrate experience and expertise in the subject matter, and
detailed qualifications to write a paper on the selected topic. Letters of Interest should
not exceed three single-spaced pages. Letters are due by 5 p.m. CDT on December 9, 2016
via email to Ed Christopher (edc(a)berwyned.com), with a copy to Penelope Weinberger
(pweinberger(a)aashto.org). All authors will be notified via email regarding the disposition
of their submissions.
Please direct any questions you may have in email to Ed Christopher (edc(a)berwyned.com)
before November 23, 2016.
AASHTO reserves the right to reject any or all Letters of Interest, to waive any or all
information or irregularities, and to negotiate with selected authors.