Walk and Bike, Uses of NHTS and Update to Table Designer Function

The health effects of walking and biking, while always a topic of interest, has been more in the spotlight lately. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is continuing their use of NHTS data to delve into this area. In late February, I participated in an Active Transportation panel in Atlanta where we focused on walking and biking as indicators.

The second set of news is that we updating a list of analyses accomplished by the NHTS user community in the Publications portion of this website. A Compendium of NHTS Users and Uses is available in the Publication page. We would like to include peer-reviewed journal articles as well as other, less formal, pieces. Let us know of any new NHTS work.

Table Designer has a tool that allows users to regroup variable values into "specified categories", e.g. to specify the age breakouts or income breakouts. This tool has been redesigned to simplify entry of the category specifications. We hope this will make it more user friendly and enhance your experience in creating tabulations customized to your uses.

Adella Santos, NHTS Project Manager

Prototype NHTS Data Visualization Tool

The prototype Data Visualization Tool provides several approaches to viewing the most commonly-accessed data from NHTS, namely trip rates, trip purposes and mode of travel. The Visualization Tool presents NHTS data in the format of a map, pie-bubbles and a dashboard configuration. The tool provides access to the 2009, 2001 and 1995 surveys and facilitates comparison of travel measures over time.

2009 Trip Chaining Dataset Now Available

The NHTS Team is pleased to announce the addition of the 2009 Trip Chaining dataset to the NHTS Data Center. Trip chaining is a travel phenomenon that has increased over the years as our lives have become more complex and more crowded. The term 'trip chaining' refers to stopping en route to a major destination with the chains being the individual stops and the tour referring to the entire set of trips. The NHTS Trip Chaining file allows users to analyze home-to-work and work-to-home tours in order to gain a better understanding of the incidental trips made to and from work. In terms of individual, unchained trips, travel from home to work and return accounts for 15.6 percent of person trips and 27.8 percent of vehicle miles of travel. However, the home and work locations acts as anchors and determine the path of many trips for other purposes.