Geographic Support System
Proposed Initiative –
FY 2011 and Beyond
Timothy Trainor
U.S. Census Bureau
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What is the Proposed Geographic
Support System Initiative?
• A budget increase over our base Geographic Support System
funding for a 10-year lifecycle program
• An integrated program of improved address coverage, continual
spatial feature updates, and enhanced quality assessment and
measurement
– All activities contribute to Master Address File (MAF) improvement
– Builds on the accomplishments of this decade’s MAF/TIGER
Enhancement Program (MTEP)
• Supports the goal of a targeted (vs. nationwide) address
canvassing for the 2020 Decennial Census
• Continual updates throughout the decade support the American
Community Survey and other current surveys
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Why do we need the GSS
Initiative?
• A response to stakeholder and oversight
recommendations
– The General Accountability office, the Office of the
Inspector General, and the National Academies of
Science have reported deficiencies of the
Geographic Support System in their evaluations
• The lack of a comprehensive geographic update program
between censuses
• Associated negative impact on ongoing programs such as
the American Community Survey, other current surveys,
and small areas estimates programs
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A logical next step…
• Between 2003 – 2008 we worked with partners to
update and improve the positional accuracy of
TIGER
• That effort was a HUGE success!!
• The MAF/TIGER Accuracy Improvement Project
was a significant investment that we want to build
upon
• Now focus is on improving our address coverage
and quality and maintaining the spatial data
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Three Integrated Components
Address Updates
123 Testdata Road
Anytown, CA 94939
Lat 37 degrees, 9.6 minutes N
Lon 119 degrees, 45.1 minutes W
Street/Feature
Updates
Quality Measurement
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GSS Initiative - Addresses
• Complete and current address coverage in
areas without city-style addresses
– Focus on rural areas
– Puerto Rico
– Group Quarters
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GSS Initiative - Addresses
• Currently, our primary sources for address
updates:
– USPS Delivery Sequence File (DSF)
– Field updates from censuses and surveys
• For FY 11 and beyond, additional sources will
focus on best available data from partnership
and commercial files
• Currently strengthening our working relationship
with USPS
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GSS Initiative - Addresses
• Complete and current address coverage in
areas without city-style address (particular
focus on rural areas)
• Beyond the annual American Community
Survey, current surveys will be using the
Master Address File to support their
statistical frames and surveys
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GSS Initiative - Features
• Continuous update of street network and
attributes
– Developing a collaboration with USGS
• Sources will focus on best available data
from partnership and commercial files
• Extensive use of imagery
– Data acquisition
– Data verification
– Data quality assurance
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GSS Initiative - Quality
• Quality improvements apply to:
– Address and Spatial Data
– IT Processes
– Geographic Products
• Quantitative measures of address and
spatial data quality are needed
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Supporting a Targeted Address
Canvassing
• There will be a shift in focus
– from canvassing each street to…
– establishing an acceptable address list for each level
of government
• What defines “acceptable” will be a
partnership collaboration between
governments and the Census Bureau
• Address quality will be an important
component
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Program Overview
FY2011
FY2013
FY2012
FY2014
FY2015
FY2016
FY2017
FY2018
FY2019
FY2020
Address Updates
16,000 blocks annually (non - GPS) *
20,000 blocks annually (GPS begins FY2014)*
CAUS GPS address listing of targeted blocks*
Develop: GPS capability
Procure GPS Receivers
Develop: partner address list
receipt / processing systems
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Update the MAF using partner and commercial address lists*
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Update the MAF using Group Quarters address lists*
Identify: commercial address lists
Active Program
Identify : Group Quarters address
lists
Identify and Develop: Puerto Rico address update
capability (Establish MOA with USPS early 2014)
Existing
Expanded
Proposed Program
Update the MAF using Puerto Rico address lists*
(Semi-annual Puerto Rico DSF Refresh)
Develop: CAUS Puerto Rico
collection capabilty
CAUS GPS address listing of targeted blocks in Puerto Rico
(100 annually)*
Develop: improved geocoding system
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Implement: improved geocoding system*
Evaluate: Island Area addresses
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Identify: viable change detection
techniques
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Add Island Area addresses to the MAF*
Implement: change detection technology*
Research
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Targeted AdCan key decision point
Conduct
targeted AdCan
Street/Feature Updates
Implementation
Develop: partner
feature receipt /
processing
Identify
commercial GIS
files
Updates to TIGER: Focus on high priority geographic
areas*
Update TIGER using partner and commercial GIS files*
CAUS GPS feature collection in targeted blocks*
Quality Measurement
Evaluate: MAF quality and source
data assessment*
MAF and partner/commercial address list source data quality assessments*
GPS control point acquisition*
TIGER and partner/commercial GIS file quality assessments*
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Key decision
points
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* Subject to Annual Assessment
Where are we now?
• Our FY 2011 budget is waiting for approval by Congress
• Geography Division management devoted a 2 day session
to begin planning for the FY2011 proposed initiative
• Census Bureau is forming teams to address specific topics:
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Address coverage and sources
Feature coverage and sources
Policy
Partnerships
Quality assessment and evaluation
MAF/TIGER Integration
Research and Development
Geocoding
GPS
Project and Contract Management
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Ongoing Work
Contracting Research & Development
• Technical consulting expertise:
– Attend the GEO offsite; identify key or unresolved issues, areas of
potential concern, perceived knowledge gaps, recommendations
COMPLETE
– Research the state and anticipated future direction of addresses and
addressing
– Research the use of handheld computers by statistical agencies and
other applicable users
– Identify the current state and anticipated future direction of potentially
useful developing technologies (example: change detection)
– Research address and spatial data digital exchange and integration
– Research geospatial data quality measurement
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Ongoing Work
Outreach and Market Research
• Communicate with professional organizations
• Communicate with advisory groups
• Conduct market research
– Develop a list of potential vendors/services
– Cooperative research & development in areas of
common interest using “no cost contracts”
– Develop a GSS Initiative Contract Plan
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Questions?
Timothy F. Trainor
Chief, Geography Division
U.S. Census Bureau
timothy.f.trainor@census.gov
(301)-763-2131
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