Overview
With Replica, you have access to origin and destination (O-D) data alongside comprehensive data about other mobility activities — mode split, trip purpose, and demographic characteristics, like household income, age, race/ethnicity, and more.
O-D data is available in both our seasonal (Places) and weekly (Trends) datasets. As a high-level overview, Places are Replica's high-fidelity, disaggregate activity-based models that cover typical weekdays and weekend days over a 13-week modeling season and include detailed information about each trip and trip-taker, across all modes, with network-link level detail. Trends is a nationwide origin-destination model that includes mode-split data that's updated weekly and lags the real world by only a couple of weeks.
In this tutorial, we'll walk through the different ways you can view O-D data in Replica.
Notes:
If you prefer to query Places data directly, you can request direct database access to Replica data via BigQuery here.
Learn more about Places data, including their data schema and methodology here.
Learn more about Trends data, including their data schema and methodology here.
If you need an introduction to Places and Trends datasets, view these articles below:
Viewing O/D Data in our seasonal (Places) dataset
The output of Places data is a complete trip and population table for a typical weekday and weekend day over a 13-week modeling season. Each row of data in the simulation output reflects a single trip, with characteristics about the trip (e.g., origin, destination, mode, purpose, routing, duration) and trip taker (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, income, home location, work/school location). Places data can be filtered on any single attribute or combination of attributes. Follow the steps below to learn how to filter Places data by specific origins and/or destinations and how to view O-D data for trips that meet other filter criteria (i.e., trips that pass through a specific corridor).
How to filter trips by origin and/or destination points
In this example, we'll demonstrate how to filter trips by origin and destination points. Follow along with this example study here.
Step 1: Set up your Study
Access the "Studies" page in Replica's platform
Click "New Study" in the upper right-hand corner of the page
Name your study, select your megaregion, season, and day of the week (choose between seeing patterns for a typical weekday or weekend day) for which you'd like to see data
Step 2: Apply "Trip Origin" and "Trip Destination" filters
Click on the "+" icon at the top of your study to launch the list of available trips, population, and geographic filters.
Under "All Filters", "Trips", or "Geographic" filters, find the "Trip Destination" filter and click the "+" arrow.
Customize this filter in the next window. For this example, we'll set our destination point as Cook County, IL. First, we set the Geo Breakdown as "Counties" and then we select Cook County off the map.
Notes:
You have the ability to select census-based geos or you can upload and use custom geographies to set as your study area. Learn more about how to upload and view custom geographies here.
You are not limited to only selecting one geography -- you can select multiple geographies.
Click "Save" to apply this filter to your study.
Follow the same steps above to apply a "Trip Origin". Click the "+" icon at the top of your study and then find the "Trip Origin" filter from the list. Click the "+" arrow next to the filter, select a geo breakdown, and then select a geography off of the map to apply.
Note: You can set a different geography breakdown for your origin point as compared to your destination point. For example, you can set a census tract as an origin point and a county as a destination point.
In this example study (link shared above as well), we've set Cook County, IL as our destination point and DuPage County as our origin point.
Step 3: Explore the trip and demographic characteristics of these O-D flows
Now that we've set up our origin and destination points, we can do a number of analyses with Places data. For example, we can:
See what network links these trips commonly use: In the Map Layer Panel, the Layer Data dropdown menu includes a "Network Link Volume" layer that will visualize what roadways these trips use. You can hover over specific links and see the number of trips in your study that passed through that specific link.
Look at the trip distances and durations: Expand the summary panel by clicking "Show Summaries" button at the top right corner of the page to explore "Trip Distance" and "Trip Durations" summary metrics.
Understand the mode split of these trips (or apply an additional filter to look at the trips that take a specific mode of travel): Use the "Primary Mode" module to understand the percentage of trips that are taken by private auto vehicle trips compared to commercial vehicle trips.
Look at the demographic characteristics of the travelers: Click on the "People" tab in the Summary Panel and see detailed information including household income, race and ethnicity, home location, private auto access, and more:
Visualize home locations. In the Map Layer Panel, the Layer Data dropdown menu includes a "By Home Location" layer that will visualize where the trip takers who travel between the two counties live.
Step 4 (Optional): Download the data
Download the trip and population data for the trips and travelers traveling between the origin and destination points.
Click the "Dataset" tab near the top left corner of your Study to download detailed records of the trips and travelers that meet your filter criteria. In this example, we've filtered down to ~602K trips and ~494K trip takers. The trip table will contain a detailed record of each one of these trips (via a unique activity_id), including primary mode, trip purpose, and more. The population table will contain an individual record of each trip taker (via a unique person_id), including detailed individual and household characteristics, like income, race and ethnicity, home and work location, and more. Click the "Download" button within this tab to download these datasets.
How to see O-D data for trips with other filter criteria
In this example, we'll demonstrate how to see O-D data for trips with other filter criteria. Follow along with this example study here where we look at O-D pairs for trips that pass through a major corridor near the Chicago area.
Step 1: Set up your Study
Access the "Studies" page in Replica's platform
Click "New Study" in the upper right-hand corner of the page
Name your study, select your megaregion, season, and day of the week (choose between seeing patterns for a typical weekday or weekend day) for which you'd like to see data
Step 2: Apply filters
Click on the "+" icon at the top of your study to launch the list of available trips, population, and geographic filters.
In this example, we want to see O-D patterns for trips that pass through a specific roadway (network link), so we'll select the "Network Links" filter by clicking on the "+" button.
Customize this filter in the next window by selecting an individual or set of network links off the map. Click "Save" to apply this filter.
Step 3: Explore origin and destination patterns for these trips
Now that we've set up our study to look at trips that pass through a specific corridor, we can now explore O-D patterns. There are a number of ways we can do this:
Visualize O-D data using Map Layers: In the Map Layer Panel, the Layer Data dropdown menu includes "Trips by Origin" and "Trips by Destination". Choose either map layer to see where the trips you've filtered down to start and end.
View the Origin-Destination Pair module: Expand the summary panel by clicking "Show Summaries" button at the top right corner of the page to explore summary trip and population metrics for your trips. The first module in this panel is "Origin-Destination Pairs" where you can see the most common O-D pairs for your filter criteria.
Notes:
You can change the geography breakdown of your O-D pairs by clicking on the downward arrow next to "Origin by [Geo name]" or "Destination by [Geo Name]"
Click "View Origin-Destination Details" button to download additional O-D data, including O-D pairs by trip purpose and by primary mode.
Click the download icon at the top-right corner of the module to download the data.
Step 4 (Optional): Download the data
Download the trip and population data for the trips, including origin and destination points.
Click the "Dataset" tab near the top left corner of your Study to download detailed records of the trips and travelers that meet your filter criteria. In this example, we've filtered down to ~125K trips and ~109K trip takers. The trip table will contain a detailed record of each one of these trips (via a unique activity_id), including origin an destination points, primary mode, trip purpose, and more. The population table will contain an individual record of each trip taker (via a unique person_id), including detailed individual and household characteristics, like income, race and ethnicity, home and work location, and more. Click the "Download" button within this tab to download these datasets.
Viewing O/D Data in our weekly (Trends) dataset
Replica's weekly Trends data provides near-real-time insight into mobility and economic activity patterns for each census tract in the country. The output mobility tables include O-D pairs by mode and residential VMT. You can view and download weekly O-D data directly from the Replica platform.
How to download weekly O/D data
Step 1: Visit the Data Downloads page
All output Trends data is available for download on the Data Downloads page. Access this page through the left-hand menu under Data > Data Downloads.
Step 2: Select your O-D data from the Tables menu
Trends O-D data is available in the Trends - Weekly Mobility" section.
Choose between "Trips Starting and Ending in Geo", "O-D by Trip Origin", or "O-D by Trip Destination."
Once you have selected your table, you can customize your download. You have the ability to download O-D pairs by trip count, mode split or trip start time. You can also customize your geography, date range, day of the week, and geography breakdown.
Once you have customized your download, click "Initiate Download" to get your file. Click here for detailed instructions on how to use the Trends Data Downloads page.
How to view weekly O/D data in Trends Dashboards
View weekly O-D patterns in Trends dashboards through the "Origin-Destination" maps. You'll find these maps within the "Mobility" tab on a dashboard towards the end of the page. There is a "Distribution of Trip Origins" and a "Distribution of Trip Destination" map.
Resources
Click here to watch a video tutorial on how to create an origin-destination study using Places data
Click here to watch a video tutorial on how to use the Trip Origins and Trip Destination map layers in Studies