Hi All,
An Update.
The 2006 - 2008 ACS data have been released by the US Census Bureau (CB)
and the CTPP Special Tabulation has been developed and delivered. (for
the table list see:
http://ctpp.transportation.org/Pages/ACSData.aspx)
This data set is the one we (the CTPP Program) are using to develop the
first CTPP product based on three year ACS Data.
In the next few months, I will try to keep this community apprised of
our progress on developing and releasing the data access software for
the CTPP based on three year ACS special tabulation that we purchased
from CB.
We issued an RFP in June of 2009 with proposals due late July. The
contract was ultimate awarded to the Beyond 20/20 Citygate team. Work
commenced on software development in January 2010.
The preliminary software has gone through one round of alpha testing,
with beta originally scheduled to be the next round. It was decided
after alpha testing that another intermediate round of user testing
should occur when the software had greater functionality, but was still
in a flexible, malleable state.
The project is nearly ready for the next round of user testing,
identified as "alpha-prime". The purpose of this round of testing is to
highlight the changes so far and to elicit feedback from users.
Beyond 20/20 has received and started processing the data from ACS.
This data was due to be delivered by 30-Jun, but the final tables were
not received until 28-Jul. Sample data was provided by mid-June, so
Beyond 20/20 has been able to use this to continue development of the
data processing logic and for testing. The data in the first set of
delivered tables will be part of the alpha-prime testing.
Work on the additional features and customization is nearly complete,
with all functionality in the alpha-prime testing, except the export to
shape files (currently under development) and the thematic mapping.
Work on the Session Editor, the customization that will allow users to
select geographies from a map, is still in progress. It is essentially
functionally complete, but there are still many issues to be resolved.
A significant outstanding issue is how the Part 3 data will be
represented both in the Session Editor and in the tables themselves.
Based on input from CTPP, it appears that there will need to be data
available for Part 3 in which the flows are represented in two
dimensions (residence and workplace), but it may also be necessary to
have a version with a single dimension for those users who do not need
to have them split. The alpha-prime will demonstrate both approaches
and the final decision on how to represent the data will be made based
on feedback from this testing.
The next contracted milestone is delivery of the beta release of the
package. There has been a request by CTPP for a new piece of
functionality to be added to the solution: export to Geodatabase
format. This format contains similar information to SHP files, but is
stored in a more up-to-date format in a Microsoft Access database.
Beyond 20/20 and Citygate are working on a proposal that will identify
the additional cost/time required to add this.
I will send another update in a few weeks, if you have any questions, do
not hesitate to contact me on or off list.
Penelope Weinberger
CTPP Program Manager
AASHTO
202-624-3556
http://ctpp.transportation.org/Pages/default.aspx
<http://ctpp.transportation.org/Pages/default.aspx>
<http://www.transportation.org>
It's just as bad to not make a plan as to blindly follow the one you
already have.