Mar 25, 2021
Uncovering the Real Demographics in your City
Replica cuts through cloudy data to reveal local transit in tourist-heavy Anaheim, CA
It’s relatively easy to obtain demographic information about the residents of a given Census geography. The Census Bureau produces detailed tabular information about residents’ racial and ethnic characteristics, and about economic attributes like household income and commute travel mode. It’s much tougher, however, to obtain the same information about the people who work in, or visit, those same geographies.
This data is at least as important as a residential profile to understanding an area’s economic character and potential. Transit service planners will want as much information as possible about the people who work near current and potential transit facilities: income, vehicle availability, trip distance, start location, and even the time of day when these trips occur are all key factors in determining whether trips are likely targets for conversion to transit.
Replica helps fill these knowledge gaps in a way that adds value to a broad range of planning applications. In this example, we’re using Replica to visualize the areas of Anaheim that generate significant numbers of transit trips to work destinations. Understanding these travel patterns offers insight into the ways transit routing and scheduling can be optimized to meet the needs of these existing workers and to accommodate additional latent demand.
In the case of Anaheim, we see that Census geographies containing major local institutions and tourism destinations account for high numbers of commuting trips. These include Disneyland, the Anaheim Convention Center, the Anaheim Business and Industrial Park, and the Orange County — Anaheim Medical Center. Further analysis would consider the peak demand times for these facilities, the origin locations and times of non-work trips destined for these areas, and would identify any large clusters of home locations for employees who currently drive to work. All of this information is accessible with Replica and can be layered into sophisticated analysis as needed.
Over the past two years, we’ve worked with Caltrans, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) to provide mobility data and transportation insights for the Sacramento region and we’re excited to bring the same value to everyone in California.
From today through March 31st, Replica is making both its Places and Trends products available at no cost to all state and local public sector employees in California. Sign up today for immediate access.
Your trial will include access to two Replica Places Megaregions — Northern California and Southern California — covering the entirety of the state of California, as well as Nevada. Together, these two models cover 42 million people.
