USES OF CENSUS DATA FOR TRAVEL RESEARCH

Among the many possible uses often cited for data from the decennial census are those related to travel research. This is appropriate, because the social, economic, and locational data provided by the census are rich in information about factors that affect travel. This value has been enhanced by the journey-to-work data collected as part of several recent censuses. The availability of such information is often greeted enthusiastically by researchers unfamiliar with idiosyncrasies of journey-to-work data. This paper reports that a sample of researchers, having experienced those conditions, are apparently less enthusiastic about using these data for travel research. The value of census data appears to be greater for analyses associated with transportation planning. The findings reported here are from a brief survey of a broad spectrum of individuals and organizations that appear most likely to use census data for travel research. In this paper, the term is intended to mean exploratory analysis to identify or determine relationships and includes model development. Model estimation, calibration, application, and related activities constitute the largest portion of responses to the survey and are reported here as planning activities. The paper is organized in the following sections: Summary of Findings (travel research, data bases, demographic research, land use and development research, and planning); Descriptions of Census Data Uses (travel research, transportation-related demographic research, land use research related to transportation, data bases and surveys, and transportation planning uses); Problems and Recommendations (problems with questions, with coding detail, and with coding accuracy, additional data needs, reporting problems, and data availability); Census User Survey; and Respondents to Requests for Information on Uses of Census Data for Research.