Metadata: Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics - Commute Patterns

Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics - Commute Patterns

This page last updated: 04/10/2023
Metadata created using Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines


Go to Section:
  1. Overview
  2. Data Quality
  3. Data Organization
  4. Coordinate System
  5. Attributes
  6. Distribution - Get Data
  7. Metadata Reference

Section 1: Overview

Originator:U.S. Census Bureau

Title: Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics - Commute Patterns

Abstract: Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics count flows of workers from residence area to workplace area. Each record represents a unique combination of residence and workplace. This dataset is an administrative records data mining product of U.S. Census Bureau. The Bureau obtains incumbent worker characteristics and home locations from Social Security Administration. Worksite locations, employment counts, quarterly wage totals and other worksite characteristics are obtained from Unemployment Insurance payroll data maintained by State employment security agencies.

Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics serves as a reasonable approximation of local employment distributions and journey-to-work patterns. Metropolitan Council uses and presents on its website statistics representing the primary jobs (OD_JT01 dataset) of unduplicated workers living in or working primarily in Minnesota.

Purpose: Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics serves as a reasonable approximation of local employment distributions and journey-to-work patterns. Metropolitan Council uses and presents on its website statistics representing the primary jobs (OD_JT01 dataset) of unduplicated workers living in or working primarily in Minnesota.

Time Period of Content Date: 2018

Currentness Reference: Year corresponding to employment statistics.

Progress: Complete

Maintenance and Update Frequency: Annually

Spatial Extent of Data:

Bounding Coordinates: -94.012
-92.732
45.415
44.471

Place Keywords: Twin Cities, Anoka County, Carver County, Dakota County, Hennepin County, Ramsey County, Scott County, Washington County

Theme Keywords: employment, jobs, workforce, commuting, origin-destination, LED, LEHD, LODES

Theme Keyword Thesaurus: None

Access Constraints: None

Use Constraints: Station Area are defined as half-mile, non-overlapping transit-influenced areas based on existing and planned transitway station locations as defined by MetroTransit. In general, transitway stations are defined as a centrally located, single station point representing multidirectional transit stops or platforms. Additional consolidations of transitway stations were made to "coexisting" multimodal stations (i.e., Blue Line's 46th Street Station (Hiawatha Ave) A-Line's 46th Street Station) before defining Station Area. Both the consolidation of stations and definition of station areas are supported by the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) Reporting Instructions for the Section 5309 Capital Investment Grant Program.

The source and allocation methodology of data included in the Station Area Statistics can be found in the data layer metadata record.

Because some station areas can represent more than one transitway corridor, the statistics for all Station Areas are provided with the download of any data layer requested at the All Station Area geography. Each Station Area is associated with a transitway Corridor segment (Corridor_ID). A Corridor segment can include one (1) to eighteen (30) stations. Use the following matrix to associate and/or summarize Corridor segments to a specific corridor(s):

Corridor_ID = Corridor
1001, 1002, 1003, 1005, 1014, 1025, 1027, 1036, 1039 = Blue Line
1001, 1004 = Northstar Commuter Rail
1005, 1006 = Red Line
1001, 1002, 1007, 1015, 1025, 1027, 1031, 1039 = Green Line
1008, 1026, 1032 = Green Line Extension
1009, 1024, 1026 = Blue Line Extension
1010, 1027, 1034 = Orange Line
1012, 1029, 1033 = Gold Line
1019, 1029, 1031 = Purpled Line
1013, 1014, 1015, 1037 = A Line
1028, 1032, 1033, 1035, 1036, 1037, 1038 = B Line
1016, 1022, 1024, 1026, 1027 = C Line
1018, 1022, 1026, 1027, 1035 = D Line
1030, 1038, 1039, 1040 = E Line
1023, 1025, 1029, 1033 = Riverview

Note: avoid double counting common Corridor segments (i.e., 2001, 2002) when summarizing multiple corridors (i.e., Blue and Green Lines).

Contact Person Information: Paul E. Hanson, GIS Specialist
Metropolitan Council
390 Robert Street North
St. Paul, MN  55101-1805
Phone: 651.602.1642
Email: paul.hanson@metc.state.mn.us

Browse Graphic: none available


Associated Data Sets: This dataset contains Excel spreadsheets indexed by county + minor civil division (or COCTU). This data can be joined with a SHP or layer of COCTUs.

Section 2: Data Quality

Attribute Accuracy: Regarding the location of employment: U.S. Census Bureau geocodes most worksite locations. Geocoded locations are then "fuzzed" or randomly moved from true locations in order to obscure the identity of individual employers and worksites. The reallocation of worksite points into other, proximate Census blocks can distort local employment summarizations. Where worksites cannot be geocoded -- either geocoding failed or address is unknown -- the Bureau assigns probable locations through a Bayesian imputation process. Such a process will be biased toward agglomerations of successfully geocoded employment. Metropolitan Council staff find that the LODES employment totals may be low by as much as 10 percent in predominantly rural areas. This suggests that U.S. Census Bureau is having some difficulty geolocating worksites in those counties.

Logical Consistency: Census-provided documentation is at http://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/#lodes Metropolitan Council considers Census LED to provide reasonable point-in-time approximations of employment, workforce and commute flows; Council advises against using LED Origin-Destination for time-series analysis (annual change) of very small areas because of the Bayesian imputation and "fuzzing" processes applied to point locations.

Completeness: Regarding data frame completeness: Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics uses the data frame of State Unemployment Insurance systems, counting wage & salary jobs that are 'covered' by Unemployment Insurance. Business owners, self-employed persons, some temporary workers, family farmers, military personnel, and others are typically outside of this frame, are not covered, and thus not counted in LODES.

Horizontal Positional Accuracy:


Lineage: Census-provided documentation is at http://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/#lodes

Regarding the location of employment: U.S. Census Bureau geocodes most worksite locations. Geocoded locations are then "fuzzed" or randomly moved from true locations in order to obscure the identity of individual employers and worksites. The reallocation of worksite points into other, proximate Census blocks can distort local employment summarizations.

Where worksites cannot be geocoded -- either geocoding failed or address is unknown -- the Bureau assigns probable locations through a Bayesian imputation process. Such a process will be biased toward agglomerations of successfully geocoded employment. Metropolitan Council staff find that the LODES employment totals may be low by as much as 10 percent in predominantly rural areas. This suggests that U.S. Census Bureau is having some difficulty geolocating worksites in those counties.

With these caveats in mind, Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics serves as a reasonable approximation of local employment distributions and journey-to-work patterns.

Metropolitan Council has compiled summary statistics, rolling up the residence area and workplace area to the county + minor civil division level of geography. The units of analysis in the Council's dataset are minor civil divisions (cities and towns) within the Twin Cities region; and counties outside the Twin Cities.

Section 3: Spatial Data Organization (not used in this metadata)


Section 4: Coordinate System

Horizontal Coordinate Scheme:

Horizontal Datum:

Horizontal Units:

Vertical Datum: not applicable

Vertical Units: NA

Depth Datum: NA

Depth Units: NA

Section 5: Attributes

Overview: Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics serves as a reasonable approximation of local employment distributions and journey-to-work patterns.

The data republished here are Commute Flows for all jobs known to State Unemployment Insurance systems. U.S. Census Bureau's Local Origin-Destination Employment Statistics program also produces: (1) Residence Area Characteristics, counting workers at their home locations; and (2) Workplace Area Characteristics, counting jobs at worksite locations.

Attributes for Chart Data:

RESIDENT_WORKPLACE: Workplace location.

WORKERS: Number of workers.

WORKPLACE_RESIDENCE: Residence location.

YEAR: The year of the data.


Attributes for Download Tabular Data (County and Community):

RESIDENCE_CO_CODE: R11000 = Within the Twin Cities seven-county area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington Counties).

RESIDENCE_GEOG_UNIT_ID: Residence identifier.

RESIDENCE_GEOG_DESC: Residence location.

RESIDENCE_GEOG_LEVEL_ID: Level of geography for residence.
COCTU = A city, township or unorganized territory within the Twin Cities seven-county area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington Counties).
SAHALF = A half-mile, non-overlapping transit-influenced area based on existing and planned transitway station locations as defined by Metro Transit.
ST = A state other than Minnesota or Wisconsin.
STCO = A county within Minnesota or Wisconsin.

WORKPLACE_CO_CODE:
R11000 = Within the Twin Cities seven-county area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington Counties).

WORKPLACE_GEOG_UNIT_ID: Workplace identifier

WORKPLACE_GEOG_DESC: Workplace location.

WORKPLACE_GEOG_LEVEL_ID: Level of geography for workplace.
COCTU = A city, township or unorganized territory within the Twin Cities seven-county area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington Counties).
SAHALF = A half-mile, non-overlapping transit-influenced area based on existing and planned transitway station locations as defined by Metro Transit.
STCO = A county within Minnesota or Wisconsin.

DATASOURCE: Source of the data. LED denotes Local Employment Dynamics

YEAR: The year of the data.

WORKERS: Number of workers.

AGE15_29: Workers 15-29 years old.

AGE30_54: Workers 30-54 years old.

AGE55_UP: Workers 55 years and older.

EARNLT15K: Workers earning less than $15,000 a year.

EARN15K_39K: Workers earning $15,000-$39,999 a year.

EARN40K_UP: Workers earning $40,000 and up.

Detailed Citation: None

Table Detail:

Section 6: Distribution

Publisher: Metropolitan Council

Publication Date: periodically revised

Contact Person Information: Paul E. Hanson, GIS Specialist
Metropolitan Council
390 Robert Street North
St. Paul, MN  55101-1805
Phone: 651.602.1642
Email: paul.hanson@metc.state.mn.us

Distributor's Data Set Identifier: LED_OD

Distribution Liability: NOTICE: The data to which this notice is attached are made available pursuant to the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13). THE DATA ARE PROVIDED TO YOU AS IS AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY AS TO THEIR PERFORMANCE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The Metropolitan Council developed some of the data for its own internal business purposes and is redistributing data developed by other data providers (e.g., the U.S. Census Bureau and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development). The Metropolitan Council does not represent or warrant that the data or the data documentation are error-free, complete, current, or accurate. You are responsible for any consequences resulting from your use of the data or your reliance on the data. You should consult the data documentation for these particular data to determine the limitations of the data. If you transmit or provide the data (or any portion of it) to another user, it is recommended that the data include a copy of this disclaimer and this metadata.

Ordering Instructions: Summarized data is available on the internet by clicking below after 'Online Linkage'. Doing so will tell your browser to download a 'ZIP' file which will contain the following:

- csv file
- metadata for the dataset (.htm)
- NOTICE.RTF, an important notice about this dataset that can be read by any word processing software.

This dataset can also be viewed and downloaded using the Download Tabular Data tool at http://stats.metc.state.mn.us/data_download/DD_start.aspx
The Download tool allows users to choose subsets of the dataset, such as a city or county.

Complete, unsummarized datasets can be viewed and downloaded at http://lehd.ces.census.gov/data/#lodes

Online Linkage:Download Page

Section 7: Metadata Reference

Metadata Date: 04/10/2023

Contact Person Information: Paul E. Hanson, GIS Specialist
Metropolitan Council
390 Robert Street North
St. Paul, MN  55101-1805
Phone: 651.602.1642
Email: paul.hanson@metc.state.mn.us

Metadata Standard Name: Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines

Metadata Standard Version: 1.2



This page last updated: 04/10/2023
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