An Analysis of Commuter Flows of

Charlotte-area Bedroom
Communities

GEOG5000: Urban GIS

Final Project Presentation
May 7, 2012
Griffen Angel, Claire Schuch and Jacob Todd
Introduction
 Commuting is an increasingly common phenomenon in the
Charlotte metropolitan area.
 About 150,000 people who live outside Mecklenburg work in
the county.
 Almost 1 of 3 Mecklenburg jobs are held by non-county
residents.
Background
 Mainstreaming of the automobile

 Suburbanization and “white flight”

 Commuting flows have been measured in different ways and at

different scales.

 Multidisciplinary, because it concerns and has affects on

people across fields and societal groups.

 Direct implications for economic and social amenities, tax distribution,

real estate development, and infrastructure in the area, but also
indirectly on social justice, public health, mainstream culture, and the
environment.
Research Question
 Are commuting flows of Charlotte-area bedroom
communities correlated to commuter income
and commuting time?
 We hypothesize that there is a:
 positive spatial and statistical correlation between
commuting flow rate and median per capita income
levels based on types of jobs and distribution of jobs.
 negative spatial and statistical correlation between
commuting flow rate and commuting time based on
distance decay theory.
 Methodology

 Two main sections:

1) An intra-county
tract
comparison
2) A network
analysis
Methodology

 Department of Transportation (DOT) commuter

data (only available for 2000 so, to be consistent,
our other data were as well)

 Shape files and income data from various US

Census websites

 We mapped the commuting flows in relation to per

capita income per tract to Charlotte for three
surrounding counties: Cabarrus, Union, and Gaston.
Methodology

 Extracted required data

using SAS.
 Imported tables into
ArcGIS and joined it to
shape files.
 Used summary statistics
to get the sum total of
commuters to Charlotte
tracts per each tract in
outlying counties.
Methodology

 Census data compiled in geodatabase, also

joined to ArcGIS shapefiles.

 A visual analysis was employed by creating a

multiple-variable choropleth map for each
surrounding county.

 Flow rate= total number of commuters to

Charlotte per tract/total labor force in that tract
Methodology
 Network analysis performed with SDC-based street
network dataset.
 OD cost matrix
 Calculate correlations between flow rate, commuter
time, and per capita income using Excel.
Results
Results
Results
Results
Results
Results
Results

 R=-0.297
 R=-0.018
 R=-0.635
 R=-0.713
Results

 R=-0.008
 R=0.068
 R=-0.064
 R=-0.441
Results

 R=0.547
 R= 0.544
 R=0.394
 R= 0.741
Conclusions
 In general, there is a positive correlation between commuting rate and per capita
income and a negative correlation between commuting time and flow rate. This
confirms our hypothesis.

 However, the correlations varied in strength among the counties, and were
sometimes affected by outliers so we cannot conclude these correlations are very
strong. Cabarrus, Gaston, and Union Counties have different commuting
relationships with Mecklenburg County so we cannot make the assumption that
they all follow the same rule or model.

 There is no significant correlation between commuting time and median per capita
income.

 Our maps and network analysis provided a better understanding of the patterns of
income and commute rates that may help identify other variables that may be
playing a role in commuting flows besides time and income.
Limitations and Future Research
 Fairly outdated – repeat with 2010 data

 Not all commutes go directly to downtown Charlotte,

this can only be used as a proxy.

 Look at more than travel time (ideas possibly obtained

through a survey of inter-county commuters)

 Incorporate other counties with work flows into

Charlotte
Thank you

 Questions?