EXPERIENCES IN USING CENSUS DATA FOR TRANSPORTATION PLANNING: THE WILMINGTON PROJECT

The 1970-census Urban Transportation Planning Package (UTPP) was evaluated to determine if it would provide actual data to satisfy generation equations and data for developing a modal-split model, in an effort to produce a multimodal transportation plan for the Wilmington region. The following shortcomings of the UTPP were observed: (1) nonresidential employment data are not provided: (2) for population and dwelling units, the data are sample data and, therefore, are subject to expansion error; (3) automobile tables do not contain precise counts for cases having more than 2 automobiles; (4) the small area geographic accuracy for employment coding is inadequate, i.e., too much emphasis is given to coding by zip code; and (5) given the above, part IV (Work-trip data by zone of residence to zone of work) should be deleted from the package for economic reasons. Overall it was considered that the package was good, but needed refining.