0 GIS Applications for Origin- Destination Surveys Greg Spitz and John Lobb Resource Systems Group Daniel Jacobs MTA Bridges & Tunnels Wayne Bennion Wasatch Front Regional Council

1 Origin-Destination (OD) Data  Critical basis of knowledge for transportation operations, modeling, and future planning  Essential for all transportation modes  Often collected by DOTs and transit agencies, but not (yet) often analyzed with GIS  OD data are inherently spatial, and visualization is key to understand them, thus the need for GIS

2  Provide insights to:  Who the customers are  Why customers are traveling  How long they are traveling, and  Where they are traveling, etc.  Labor intensive data collection efforts  Used to understand current demand and plan for future demand  Critical data for calibrating travel models Origin & Destination Surveys

3 GIS Tools in action  MTA Bridges and Tunnels— largest toll agency in US  Wasatch Front Regional Council &Utah Transit Authority— transit on-board survey  Two different agencies, modes, and application purposes  GIS the common denominator to solve issues for these different purposes

MTA B&T Origin & Destination Survey  Conducted roughly every 8-10 years  2004 Study:  304,000 surveys distributed in CASH lanes  329,000 surveys mailed to E-ZPass customers  Control Data collected in both CASH and E- ZPass lanes with Pocket-PCs  E-ZPass sample from B&T, PANYNJ, NYSTA, NYSBA, and NJRSC comprising 99% of all transactions  Survey period 6AM to Midnight; Weekday, Saturday, and Sunday

5 MTA B&T Survey TAZ Structure  All zones are based on zip codes  Geocoding of survey data only necessary to the zip code level  Aggregations of zones used to form “super zones”

6 GIS using static maps  Static analysis with better presentation  Easy to put together quickly  Becoming more and more typical

7 Survey Zone Map : Close-up DRAFT

8 Super Zone Map

9 Example of Static Map using super zones: Bronx-Whitestone Bridge – Bronx Bound All O-D pairs with greater than 4% of traffic All payment types Weekday Truck/taxi trips excluded 6am to Midnight Total Auto Traffic (6AM to Midnight) is 47,030 95% Confidence interval for these OD pairs is plus or minus 2.0% 20.2% 19.1% 4.1% 4.5% 10.2%

10 GIS Tool Purpose  Take geospatial data and make it easier to visualize, analyze, and interpret  Allow more in depth analyses beyond static reports  Make the tool easy to use, so even a (skilled) monkey can use it  Leverage GIS experts’ skills without taking too much of their time

11 How was the tool made?  ArcMap extension  Access DB backend  Currently developed to be a stand alone tool (could be made to be network/web enabled)  Simple user interface created using VB development environment

12 Income Distributions by Origin Zones

13 Vehicle Occupancy by Origin Zone

14 Specific Trip Analysis

15 Travel Pattern Analysis

WFRC On-Board Transit Survey  3 surveys conducted in last 15 years  Data primarily used for travel model development and forecast refinement  2006 survey  Surveyed riders on 90 bus routes and the TRAX rail system  Collected 5,600 surveys

17 OD Data Mining is Cumbersome  Survey database has over 100 columns and 5600 rows (difficult to view all relevant variables at once)  TAZ number and/or address text may not be immediately recognizable (data is spatial)

18 GIS Tool Purpose (WFRC)  Preliminary review of the data suggested that the 2006 survey transfer rates were unreasonable  Interest in examining individual survey records efficiently

19 GIS tool (WFRC) Goals  Local QA/QC  Efficiently examine each record  Easy data editing/entry  Gain confidence in the data used for model calibration (e.g. transfer rates) Features  Custom ArcGIS application  Visualize transit path details for one record at a time  Routes  Origin/Destination  Boarding/Alighting  Data viewing/editing window

20 Screen capture of GIS Tool Reported data

21 Survey Errors Identified 1. People reported multiple paths they sometimes take, rather than simply their current path (question 7) 2. Inconsistency between routes and OD pair 3. Geocoding errors 4. Illogical route sequence

22 Example of Multiple Paths between same OD Pair

23 Another example of multiple paths between same OD pair

24 Summary  Application clearly identified obvious inconsistencies and errors, resulting in a more reliable database.  Visualization of these records would also be extremely helpful in assessing survey design and reducing respondent error.

25 User-friendly GIS tools developed for planners and analysts  GIS tools allow planners and others to drill down on the data  Tool interface confines the problem (both a good and bad thing)  Interface makes analysis much easier and doesn’t require in-depth software/data knowledge  Tools allow analysts to get more out of their data collection investment

26 Questions ?  Please use the Microphone.