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@berwyned.com), with a copy to Penelope Weinberger (pweinberger@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@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.