[CTPP] American Commuter Survey (ACS): The Means of Transportation Question (follow-up summary #2)

Hello, Shown below my original December 11 email to the CTPP listserv are all comments received--in most cases a direct quote, but some of the emails sent directly to me were summarized. A clear consensus has not (yet) emerged, so it is expected this will undergo more deliberations after the holidays, before a specific "ACS content change" request is proposed by U.S. DOT in early 2013. One way to identify the underlying problem with pre-specified categories is by describing how this would be treated in a local transit rider survey that focuses on collecting data from a sample of transit passenger boardings, for purposes of travel model calibration and validation--as well as gaining a better understanding of the transit-riding public for other planning purposes: -- The survey respondent answers questions (via personal interview or by filling out a form) about their current transit trip, rather than the usual trip to work last week. -- The respondent notes the origin and destination location (and purpose) of their one-way trip, as well as "full path" information that includes the initial mode of access to the first transit stop, the final mode of egress from the last transit stop, and each specific transit route used (or about to be used) to complete the trip. -- The respondent notes other specific information about their household (e.g., number of autos available, income range) or themselves (e.g., employment status, whether they have a driver's license) that will be useful to the subsequent analysis purposes. The nice thing about collection of the person's actual transit routes used is that there is no need to come up with a pre-determined national list of mode type categories: the analyst can convert the detailed "Route ID" information to whatever is useful to their planning. So different locally-available flavors of rail service can be separately tracked, as well as different flavors of bus service (local, express, BRT). Specialized local surveys can also be created to address other "public transportation" modes such as shared-ride taxis/vans and paratransit. I will not dare attempt to speak for the Census Bureau, but looking at this from a practical technical viewpoint it seems unlikely the ACS questions could ever be locally-customized to address everything that "could" be obtained by means of local household, transit rider, workplace, and other specialized intercept surveys. A Very Big Picture question might be whether the national ACS even needs a "means of transportation" question about a person's commute trip to work (or, for that matter, whether any journey-to-work questions are needed), since other surveys (including the NHTS) can capture this information for more than just the commute trip. While there is probably never a 100% consensus on any issue, I think most people--particularly those on this CTPP listserv--see a value in capturing different "means of transportation" categories in ACS. Maybe the best that can be done is to (eventually) modify the current ACS categories/descriptions so that several things happen: -- A very high percentage of the ACS respondents are able to easily find a category other than "other method" to describe their usual commute to work. -- Many transit-oriented studies probably don't even require actual breakdowns for different "transit" modes in a region, particularly when the analysts are mindful of the small ACS sample sizes associated with relatively "rare" modes; so in these situations, all that really matters is that if an ACS respondent used "transit" or "public transit" or "public transportation" for most of the distance covered in their usual commute to work, a very high percentage are able to choose a category that can later be aggregated (for future analysis purposes) to a general "public transportation" category. So if a person actually used "light rail," it doesn't actually matter whether this record shows up in a category that applies to streetcars, subways, commuter rail, or even buses. But it does matter if this person gets "lost" to transit by selecting "other method." -- However, just because many transit-oriented studies may have no need to separately summarize commuters by different types of transit, this does not apply to all studies. The comments from Tom Marchwinski of NJ Transit are particularly interesting and worth a careful read by everyone interested in this topic, for he lays out a very good case to get more than just a "public transportation" analysis out of ACS data collected in transit-rich areas. An attempt to coherently summarize all responses received is fraught with limitations, so I won't attempt to do that right now. But it should perhaps be emphasized that many of the comments are focused on "what could be done" in a scenario where the total number of "means of transportation" categories is assumed to not increase. If that constraint was relaxed, some of the observations from others might be different. Additional comments from anyone are still very much appreciated, but of greatest interest right now would be comments from those who (like Tom Marchwinski) operate transit service and/or conduct studies in regions with many different types of transit. Happy Holidays! Sincerely, Ken Cervenka FTA Office of Planning and Environment Ken.Cervenka(a)dot.gov ********************************** -----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Cervenka Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 4:24 PM Hello, As you may know, the Census Bureau's "means of transportation" question on the current American Community Survey questionnaire (as well as the previous Census 2000 "long form") is as follows: How did this person usually get to work LAST WEEK? If this person usually used more than one method of transportation during the trip, mark (X) the box of the one used for most of the distance. __ Car, truck, or van __ Bus or trolley bus __ Streetcar or trolley car __ Subway or elevated __ Railroad __ Ferryboat __ Taxicab __ Motorcycle __ Bicycle __ Walked __ Worked at home __ Other method Here at U.S. DOT, we (meaning FTA, FHWA, and BTS) are discussing whether updated descriptions might make more sense for the three public transportation categories associated with use of rail: __ Streetcar or trolley car __ Subway or elevated __ Railroad However, any changes to these three categories (or even collapsing these to a single "rail transit" category) will, if ultimately approved for testing, require a formal and carefully-controlled "ACS content change" test to be conducted by the Census Bureau in 2013 and 2014. So this is a very big deal. If three rail-related categories are maintained, here is one approach under consideration for future testing: __ Streetcar or trolley rail __ Subway, metro, or light rail __ Commuter railroad or Amtrak Or maybe a variation that makes it clear(er) each of these choices refer to a rail transit mode: __ Rail - streetcar or trolley __ Rail - subway, metro, or light rail __ Rail - commuter railroad or Amtrak If you have any comments about what seems to make the most sense from the viewpoint of a future ACS respondent and/or transportation data analyst, please send me an email and I will summarize all comments received in a future email to this listserv (along with your name as the author, unless you wish to be anonymous). But feel free to reply directly to this listserv with your observations! ***************** From: Krishnan Viswanathan I personally like the second classification: __ Rail - streetcar or trolley __ Rail - subway, metro, or light rail __ Rail - commuter railroad or Amtrak My reasons are the following: 1) As a survey respondent it removes the confusion regd. what to answer faced with this question. A regular respondent will say that they take the train, they do not distinguish between subway/light rail vs commuter rail and calling it out in this manner - where we we have rail broken into subcategories will help the respondent choose the right type of rail. 2) As an analyst, having this classification makes it easier to compare across and within modes and geographies. What i mean is this - lets say we did not distinguish that these are 3 rail modes which are classified further as streetcar/light/commuter and geog A has all 3 rail modes available, geog B has only 2 rail modes, and geog C has only one rail mode available. Doing this classification allows the analyst to determine that in all 3 geographies, when a respondent choice is one common mode, it means the same thing and not different things to different respondents in different geographies. It will also allow for better mode choice estimation if the nest definitions are directly from the survey data and not solely reliant on analyst judgement. Further, when looking at results/doing studies later on it might be easier to consider what the aggregate rail mode comprises of when compared to auto and bus. ***************** From: Wendell Cox Light rail does not belong with subway and metro. It belongs with trolley or street car. Other than that either of the two alternatives would be fine. But if light rail is to be twinned with metro, better to stay with what we have. ***************** From: Patricia Becker This is going to be very difficult to test because so few ACS respondents have access to any of these. Does the word "metro" mean the same thing in all metro areas, or are there some where it refers to bus transportation? I'm not sure the term "rail" resonates well everywhere, either. I would suggest that FDOT gather information from the states and metros where rail commuting is a feasible option and find out what people call it, or how it's referred to, such as "metro" in the Washington DC areas. ***************** From: Barb Mee I am not responding as a professional because I am neither a data nor a transit pro. I do answer census questions when asked though, and really like the rail - ... approach. I wonder if elevated ought to stay in the description, though. While I think the only remaining el is in Chicago, I imagine lots and lots of folks use it, and it seems like it's worth it to get the right answer. ***************** From: Wendell Cox [In response to Patricia Becker's comment] metro (didnt capitalize, because it refers in this context to a type of rail system, not a name of a rail system) is the international term but not used extensively in this country. Probably the best term is subway/elevated. The point is that metros/subways and elevates are fully grade separated, and faster... as opposed to light rail, which is rarely, if ever, fully grade separated and thus is generally slower and has much lower capacities. ***************** From: Steve Polzin Glad you are looking at this. I like the idea of adding light rail. In the new start locations this is commonly known by the public as light rail. I do think it fits better with streetcar and trolley. Since the question refers to last week it is almost certainly travel in their home town (unless they were out of town for the majority of the week) so one could set up logic checks to test the reasonableness of the responses. I wish they would also shift to asking about the mode on the most recent day they commuted to work. Transit is more commonly an occasional mode (compared to auto) and hence it is not uncommon for folks to use it a few time per week but not the majority and very common for folks to have it as a normal mode but not exclusive mode leading to some overstating of transit commuting use. NHTS confirms a significant difference between actual and usual mode for transit. Would be nice to shift to actual travel day mode. ***************** From: Andrew Rohne I like the second classification, but I want "metro" (whether capitalized or not) stricken from it. Our bus system has "Go*Metro" all over the sides of their busses, and a fairly decent proportion of their riders may not understand that metro = subway on the form, I wouldn't want them confused. ***************** From: Tom Worker-Braddock [In response to Andrew Rohne's comment] Agreed on removing the word "metro". A wide variety of non-rail transit systems incorporate the word "metro" or "Metro" into their branding or service schemes. The Kansas City transportation authority extensively brands itself as "The Metro", but doesn't have a single rail component in the system (although some are being planned). ***************** From: Rob Case I think it best to clarify what exists today, as opposed to creating "new" categories, in order that comparisons may be made (albeit with caveats) to the past. Therefore, I think that light rail is often a "street" mode and most users would have been answering "Streetcar or trolley rail" because they all ride in the street. And, like Krishnan, for clarity, I like the use of "Rail - " as a prefix. So, placing the most frequent answers first in the list within each response, I'm in favor of: __ Rail - light rail, streetcar, or trolley __ Rail - subway, metro, or elevated __ Rail - commuter rail or Amtrak PS It's sort of picky, but I think "commuter rail" is more common and more accurate than "commuter railroad" (the actual "railroad" can be owned by one company and used by it for freight, by Amtrak, and by a commuter rail outfit). ***************** From: Arash Mirzaei It does not seem too difficult to collect all the names used for all transit modes in the country before any suggestion is extended to ACS office. After all, these transit modes are provided by transit agencies and they know, as providers, what their modes are. The result would be a list of transit service names and the modes. This product provides an objective source of data for making a recommendation. If printing costs are not prohibitive, a more advanced way of using the above list would be in the contextual design of the ACS form. More meaningful terms can be used for each region in which the ACS is being conducted. So, the form offers most possible modes with locally familiar names based on the location of the respondent. ***************** From: Mike Harmon I think the use of vans (Vanpools) needs to be separated from the other options since their use is increasing so much. ***************** From: Alan Pisarski [In response to Mike Harmon's comment about vans (Vanpools)] A really intriguing idea. a little complicated but still worth considering. ***************** From: Tom Marchwinski, 12/13/2012 [Private email to Ken, but included here with permission] I am strongly going to disagree with lumping LRT in with subway/elevated. The case that new LRT is more like subway is not proven, in fact, in both one of the most dense areas of the US like Hudson County, and a suburban area like Burlington County NJ, both with new LRT systems, riders chose to call modern LRT "railroad", not Subway/Elevated. OR they called it "other". I may even have the data to show this. There is a big difference, and parts of both of these areas have traditional subway , 3rd rail transit in the form of PATH and PATCO. Since except in LA and the SF Bay Area there are not any new subway systems being built, I think the difference between traditional subway/elevated and LRT is more important to all of those regions which have both. This includes NJ, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and if new LRT is ever built, NY, and Chicago. Also DC with the trolley projects cannot be lumped in with WMATA Metrorail. Same in LA with Blue, Gold Line vs. Red Line subway. ***************** From: Tom Marchwinski, 12/13/2012 This is Tom Marchwinski of New Jersey Transit. As one of the few areas in the country that actually has significant amounts of people using all of the rail modes under discussion, and as one who makes use of the data from this question not just for modeling but also to look at mode shares, and understand transit travel patterns and demographics, I would like to weigh in on this. You should know that I approached FWHA about 8 years ago on this very issue, and proposed that with all of the new Light Rail systems in the US, including two new systems here in New Jersey (as well as having an older, pre-1945 trolley line, the Newark Subway now called Newark Light Rail)that it was time to have a separate Light Rail mode question. However, as you indicate, it takes two years of testing to get a question change, and nothing was advanced. So I am glad to see this proposal finally come about. Here is some real world experience both with full census and ACS in an area that has all of these modes. 1. I believe Light Rail, streetcar and Trolley should be a separate mode. If you want to say "Rail- Light Rail, Streetcar and Trolley", that would be OK. Light rail is running in so many regions now, and it really is a separate mode from the other two rail types, both in terms of vehicle type, use in both mixed street and grade separation, and also visibility, as well as type of seating in most cases. 2. Keep Subway/Elevated as a separate mode. "Rail- Subway/Elevated" IF you want to add Metro, you could, but I would be very cautious about this. You should survey how many agencies, including Bus Only systems call themselves Metro. I am concerned that many survey respondents who take a system with the word "Metro" in the title will see this response and assume it applies, when it may mean the name of the system. As Wendell Cox indicated, Metro is not in common use in the US, and maybe this could be tested as an addition by the Census . There could be a component of US born vs. non-US born on this issue, so I think it can be tested, but I am wary of confusion with system names that include Metro. Even in the DC area, "Metro" usually refers to the subway system, but there is also MetroBus, and some people may get confused. 3. My Third Choice would be "Rail- Commuter or Long-Distance Railroad". I use the word long distance rather than AMTRAK, since AMTRAK is technically a company name, and who knows if it will be named that for 20 years, or even in operation. Using the word "commuter" also is better because most new systems of this type are called commuter railroad. Also, in an old system like we have in New Jersey , with over 250 commuter rail stations, census data still shows some confusion between "Railroad" and "Subway/Elevated". In areas with no Subway in proximity to the commuter rail stations, a significant number of people will check Subway/elevated as a mode, so we have to add them together to get a commuter rail total. By putting or at least testing the word commuter with railroad, it makes it clearer that it is separate from Subway. I think this would help. Long Distance Railroad I think also covers AMTRAK but makes it more generic, and does not tie answers to AMTRAK specifically. I believe Light Rail should be separate because it really is different than either commuter rail or subway. In Northern New Jersey , we have competition between subway (PATH system) vs. commuter rail, and in limited circumstances Light Rail. Because we have a historic trolley now light rail service in Newark, most people checked "Railroad" or Subway /Elevated. Without the word light rail, very few people check "trolley" for any of our three LRT Systems, which in addition to Newark are Hudson Bergen Light Rail, and the River Line LRT in Southern NJ. I would also strongly object to lumping all rail in one category. In areas like NJ, NY, Philadelphia, Boston, etc, where there are multiple rail modes, we do use the differences to estimate rail vs. LRT or rail vs. Subway/elevated submodal spilts. Granted it is more difficult because of lower sampling, but our own survey data does show (and if you are interested we can provide some of the details) that there are significant demographic, choice, and submodal split differences that are important to maintain and understand. WE need the current split of three rail modes to continue. As I indicated, having one for LRT/Trolley, one for Subway/Elevated, and one for commuter rail etc. is the best way to maintain both long term historic trend data and also detailed submodal data both for model validation, demographics of riders, and understanding the types of issues we deal with on a regular basis, as well as planning by some of the larger transit agencies such as NJ TRANSIT. ! My last comment is on the issue we probably cannot change, which is the Census insistence on using the "longest distance" mode as to which mode to pick. This I believe is confusing, and we know it overstates auto usage in some areas, as we have considerable long drive to transit trips. IF there was any way to test changing this to ask if a person checked auto was transit used on any part of this trip, or to change to restriction in some way I think that would help as well. Finally, I do believe as one comment I saw said, that vanpool should be a separate mode. I would ask it under auto where I believe the question is 7 or more persons in the auto, to give two choices, one would be "Car or Truck, 7 or more persons, and then Vanpool, 7 or more persons. NJT does subsidize vanpools, and getting a handle on this would be useful. IF needed, I can send a formal email to you with these comments, and also can offer some other suggestions about where it would make sense to test these potential new wordings. As I have indicated, we do have almost the full range of modes within our service area, including ferry. In fact we have one of the few locations with commuter rail, Subway, Light Rail, and Ferry at the same location (Hoboken Terminal). ***************** From: Discussions within FTA, 12/14/12 It would be very interesting to hear how [others] would respond to an exercise similar to what we did. Something along the lines of this. 1) Start with a group of "clearly streetcar" systems: Memphis, Tampa HARTLine, Kenosha, etc. 2) Start with another group of "clearly subway" systems: MARTA, Cleveland RTA "Rapid", Washington Metro, etc. Now, if we assume that "light rail" systems have to be grouped for ACS purposes with either Group #1 or Group #2, what is the best group for systems that are "clearly light rail", e.g. the DART rail system, Denver TRAX, etc. The question could then be expanded to address things that are closer calls like Newark Subway, Hudson-Bergen Line, the River Line. If there were no issues associated with survey length, a more useful categorization for different transit planning purposes may be: __ Personal car, truck, or van __ Carpool __ Vanpool __ Bus - Local __ Bus - Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) __ Bus - Commuter, Intercity, or Regional __ Rail - Streetcar (modern, vintage, or heritage) __ Rail - Light Rail __ Rail - Subway, Metro, or Elevated __ Rail - Commuter Rail __ Rail - AMTRAK __ Ferryboat __ Taxicab __ Motorcycle __ Bicycle __ Walk __ Work at home __ Other method ***************** From: Tom Marchwinski, 12/14/12 [Private email to Ken, but included here with permission] We feel pretty strongly about keeping three separate rail modes. We do use those distinctions for a lot of data. I also believe given the extent of LRT systems now or in the future running, it makes sense to have a separate Light Rail category, which is what we are missing now. I would say on the streetcar issue, that one option might be to put streetcar in with bus, trolley bus and call it "bus, trolley bus, or streetcar". I would think there can be a case made that since streetcar operates on street like buses, it is really more like buses. However, it does have rails. I understand the concern, given the amount of streetcar projects either underway or proposed. My question would be, outside of Portland and Seattle, how many other cities that have LRT also have plans for streetcars? You almost need to have a matrix of all the rail modes by metro area to see this. I agree a lot of people are selecting "Other method", which we want to limit. One other point, which probably would muck things up is I could see some people saying BRT should be a separate bus mode. Given the wide variety of approaches to BRT, I do not think this is practical, so it should still be bus, but you may want to mention to the research people how they would account for speed/service distinctions with BRT vs. bus or vs. LRT. ***************** From: Scott Seeburger, 12/14/12 Tom Marchwinski's insights are very good. I agree with you, Ken, related to LRT not being the same as streetcar. But I strongly believe that LRT should be in its own category and not lumped in with street car nor with the urban rail descriptors. Since the questionnaire will be the same throughout the country, it will need to provide good data in various situations such as New Jersey and San Francisco where all steel-wheel modes exist, systems that are 100% dedicated guideway (urban rail-like), systems that are a 100% mixed traffic or circulator (streetcar-like), and those that are a mix of the two. In this way, the various areas can sort out the data (hopefully) the way they need to. If "metro" should be included in the subway/elevated category, I recommend using "metrorail" instead for the reasons expressed in other emails. This might lead to some confusion in places such as Dallas where responders might answer either metrorail or light rail, but this could be sorted out. San Francisco might have a harder time figuring it out between BART and Muni Metro. And just to add more ambiguity to this, the terminology will work only until a rubber-tired "metro" is installed somewhere in the States. I could support Tom M's recommendation to use "elevated/subway" only although I think the LRT ambiguity would come into the questionnaire again. I suggest that "railroad" might be confusing. Not sure how the evaluations of the ACS has viewed the responses to this and if this simple one word descriptor has been sufficient. Eliminate this entirely and use the "RAIL - Commuter, Amtrak (or long distance)" instead. ***************** From: Nelson Galeano, 12/14/12 What about BRT? ***************** From: Tom Marchwinski, 12/14/12 [Private email to Ken, but included here with permission] Given the path of least resistance, to me it may come down to simply add "Light Rail" to" streetcar", and if possible update Railroad to Rail-Commuter or Intercity or Railroad-Commuter and Intercity. That is probably the least amount of change, I guess we will see what others throughout the country think...We actually had a situation where we changed the name of the current Newark system from Newark Subway to Newark Light Rail. This was after we expanded the system, and we changed the name to reflect what the system really was. Now almost everyone refers to the system as Newark Light Rail, so we have some experience with this issue. ***************** From: Diane Paoni, 12/17/12 Are you interested in examining the other travel options besides rail transit? The ACS options have always bothered me because they don't necessarily approach the question from a users perspective. For instance, someone may choose van if the regular vehicle they drive to work alone in is a van or if they're part of a van pool, or if the local transit they're on uses vans. The same with taxi. Wisconsin, like many states with extensive low density populations, have something called shared ride taxi. Its subsidized transit service where a dispatcher can assign more than one unrelated person to the same cab if they're origins or destinations are near each other. Taking a regular taxi vs. a shared ride taxi isn't distinguished in the ACS. The big missing option of course is paratransit, sometimes called inaccurately demand response. The use of paratransit is expected to increase as the population increases in age. It's not really being tracked in the ACS. As for your original question on rail, "light rail" seems like a good addition. Though not necessarily as its own category. ***************** From: Scott Seeburger, 12/17/12 [Private email to Ken, but included here with permission] Tom Marchwinski emailed back to me and indicated that Census would likely not allow for a net increase in questions. It looks to me that there are four questions to work with. He suggested, and I can agree, that street car and trolley bus could be grouped with bus. Here are two ideas: __ Bus or trolley bus --> Bus, trolley bus, trolley car, street car --> Bus, trolley, or street car __ Streetcar or trolley car --> Light rail -- subway/elevated --> Rapid or express bus __ Subway or elevated --> Metrorail -- subway/elevated --> Subway or elevated rail __ Railroad --> Rail -- commuter, intercity --> Commuter or intercity rail Tom indicated that he was interested in BRT so the second alternative above might work for this. Maybe this will fit, but I see there is not much space for long descriptors on the current survey form. ***************** From: Tom Marchwinski, 12/18/12 [Private email to Ken, but included here with permission] Ken- As you correctly point out, and I agree, streetcar is used more as a distributor, and does not carry a lot of work trips, which is what ACS question is all about. I agree for modeling purposes, on board surveys are more important, but even here in NJ, we do depend on the ACS census question to get a handle on mode and submodal split in a specific area, and also to track trends over time. This is especially the case with auto vs. rail vs. bus, and where appropriate Light Rail or subway. We were able to see changes in commutation to Manhattan and Jersey City at county and large MCD with ACS. But as I indicated, in areas where new LRT service was added, "Other" jumped up as a mode. Also, social characteristics of the different transit modes by geography is important from our perspective, especially for economic development, TOD, and access to jobs. Especially with regard to income, and other social characteristics, we use ACS to estimate what type of people are using transit at different levels of geography, as well as a check the accuracy of our on-board surveys. AS to where streetcar goes, historically it has been Trolley or streetcar, so it seems like Light Rail should go with that, as they all operate on rails and all operate in mixed traffic. But since LRT also operates on its own separate right of way and typically has higher speeds, I could see lumping streetcar and trolley in with bus. That way all of the in-street modes with similar travel time and operational issues such as running in mixed traffic are similar. But mixing a steel wheel mode with rubber tired may prove problematic. But a lot of cities run rubber tired old time "trolleys". The advantage of keeping streetcar/trolley with Light Rail is that in many cities like Portland and Seattle the streetcar is an extension of the LRT system and even integrated with it. Proposed trolleys in DC, Atlanta operate where there is no LRT, so in that case keeping streetcar with LRT would be able to segregate trolley use. Given that, I would come down on the side of streetcar and trolley with Light Rail because of the two examples I just mentioned. *****************