Assessing the Value of New Big Data Sources for Transportation Planning: Benton Harbor, Michigan Case Study

Abstract

Transportation professionals and researchers have traditionally relied on household travel surveys to understand transportation needs, especially for transit-dependent and other environmental justice communities. Recently, new big data sources have become available for transportation planning applications. The purpose of this article is to compare a traditional household travel survey with two such datasets used by practitioners: SafeGraph and StreetLight. The analysis compares the coverage and travel patterns they provide across a socioeconomically diverse small region centered on the twin cities of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan, USA. Although lacking demographic data, the big data sources provide greater coverage and detail for parts of the region home to the African American population important for environmental justice analysis. In addition, SafeGraph data derived from cell phones provides potentially useful point-of-interest and time-of-day travel information lacking from the conventional survey. The article describes the potential for data fusion for enhanced understanding of community needs.