[CTPP] Table Content -Reply

if you have ever looked at the table headings they are sometimes very difficult to figure out what they actually contain. For instance, if you want the JTW number of workers by mode there really isn't a table heading for this. JTW is part C and table C1 is time to work. Its heading is "Time leaving home to go to work-total and peak period by means of transportation to work"...universe workers 16+ who did not work at home. Each cell contains the number of workers, not the time they spent going to work by that mode; the table coordinates tell you that the table contains 2 tables sequentially first coordinates 1,1 to 1,19 contain the total and then the peak period with table coordinates 2,1 to 2,19. Table headings should be immediately intuitive!!!!! What needs to be done is that the table headings for C1 must say what the table contains:" workers, leaving home to work by mode of travel; daily and peak period" universe of workers 16+ who did not work at home. This way you immediately know the contents are workers all day and peak period Get an English teacher to write or review the headings, the products produced by Census are written in Census Jargon which at best is unclear because it tries to be overly precise and interpretation can be very tough even knowing what you are reading. below is a dialogue that has been going on that i believe would be of interest to the entire ctpp mail list. it is extremely topical because just today Elaine Murakami called to remind me that i need to get something written up regarding our survey of several trb committees regarding the content (tables) of the ctpp package. here is a web page that presents some preliminary work in that area. don did remind me of an early product that even we in chicago used (stf s-5). http://www.mcs.com/~berwyned/census/notes/content.html needless to say any comments folks have on content for the ctpp (the tables) would be appreciated. i also recommend that you post your comments to the list ed christopher ------------------------------------------------ Don, Let me see what I can answer right now and what has to go into the hopper: other can't I think the work flows have to come from the county to county file, and I would assume that will be repeated. It will make sure it's on our list. Actually, I was never aware of it as a formally named product (STF5?) but I did have a copy of it for Michigan counties. The issue of grouping counties as areas on the CTPP has to be fought out within the transportation planning community. Bicycle, Walked, and Worked at home are on the census dress rehearsal questionnaire, which means that unless something very unusual and unlikely happens, they will be on the 2000 long form. Once the data are collected, it's really up to the transportation planning community to decide how they will be tabulated on the CTPP. Also, you are going to have more opportunity to do your own tabulations via the Internet, so if you need something special you will probably be able to do it (albeit for a fee), or pay someone to do it for you. With nationwide TIGER coverage, I believe that all workplaces with street addresses are to be coded to tract/block. This of course permits their assignment to TAZ. The question is what happens with the inadequate workplace address entries on the census. You might want to talk to Phil Salopek about their plans on this. In 1980 Phil Fulton devised an elaborate allocation algorithm which fixed a lot of the problems in these data for workplaces inside the urbanized area, and with the full TIGER coverage the algorithm can be run for everywhere. However, if you have some major workplaces in the more rural counties that don't have addresses and that you want to be sure are coded correctly, you may be able to provide some workplace name information to the Bureau to assist with this. The CMSA and the MPO don't have anything to do with each other, really. The CMSA is defined under OMB rules (now under review for possible significant changes; a federal register notice is due very soon); there can be a considerable amount of politics in the MSA/PMSA/CMSA designations because a lot of people think "the bigger the better" which makes for larger CMSAs. If you're not planning for the additional 5 counties, you probably don't need the CTPP for them. Besides, won't some other MPO have it (if the 5 counties are their own PMSA, they probably have some MPO coverage somewhere). Hope this helps! Ed, if you want to post this to the list, please feel free. ============================= Patricia C. (Patty) Becker 313/535-2077 APB Associates/SEMCC FAX 313/535-3556 17321 Telegraph #204 Home 248/355-2428 Detroit, MI 48219 pbecker(a)umich.edu