Commuting (Journey to Work)

The concept of the daytime population refers to the number of people who are present in an area during normal business hours, including workers. This is in contrast to the “resident” population present during the evening and nighttime hours. Information on the expansion or contraction experienced by different communities between nighttime and daytime populations is important for many planning purposes, including those dealing with transportation, disaster, and relief operations.

Calculating Daytime Population

There are two different methods that we suggest for calculating daytime population.

Method 1:
Total resident population + (total workers working in area - workers who lived and worked in same area) - (total workers living in area - workers who lived and worked in same area)

or

Method 2:

Total resident population + Total workers working in area - Total workers living in area.

American Community Survey

Those components from the American Community Survey (ACS) can be found in the following detailed tables, available via American FactFinder.

Total resident population:
B01003 TOTAL POPULATION

Total workers living in area:
B08007 SEX OF WORKERS BY PLACE OF WORK ("Total:" line)

Workers who lived and worked in same area (depending upon which geography summary level):
B08007 SEX OF WORKERS BY PLACE OF WORK--STATE AND COUNTY LEVEL ("Worked in county of residence" line); B08008 SEX OF WORKERS BY PLACE OF WORK--PLACE LEVEL("Worked in place of residence" line); B08009 SEX OF WORKERS BY PLACE OF WORK--MINOR CIVIL DIVISION("Worked in MCD of residence" line)

Total workers working in area:
B08406 SEX OF WORKERS BY MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION TO WORK FOR WORKPLACE GEOGRAPHY ("Total:" line)

Census 2000

Those components from Census 2000 can be found in the following detailed tables, available via American Factfinder.

Total resident population:
Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF3), Table P3. Note that this is based on the 100-percent population count and may differ from the total population in Table P1, which is based on sample data. Click on "Data Sets" at American Factfinder.

Total workers living in area:
Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF3), Table P30. The "Total" line gives the number of resident workers, or workers living in the area. Click on "Data Sets" at American Factfinder.

Total workers working in area:
Census Transportation Planning Package 2000, Part 2 -Data by place of work. The "Total" from any table with a universe of "All workers" will give the total working in the area. See CTPP 2000 to download data for a particular summary level and state from Part 2.

• Table 1. Leading Places on Percent Change in Daytime Population, by Size [XLS - 108K] [CSV - 26K]
• Table 2. The United States, States, Counties, Puerto Rico and Municipios [XLS - 598K] [CSV - 296K]
• Table 3. Selected Places by State [XLS - 2.3MK] [CSV - 611K]