Method and system for counting households within a geographic area
A method and system for providing an accurate count of total households and seasonal households within a defined geographic area is disclosed. The invention has application in, for example, the identification of potential sites for retail business locations. The invention utilizes additional data sources beyond census data in order to provide more accurate household counts, particularly in high-growth areas when census data has become stale. Seasonal households are counted by the use of telephony data containing spatially inconsistent records (SIRs), that is, records for which the billing address does not match the location where the telephone service is provided. Households for which an exact address is not known are allocated within the geographic area of interest according to various spreading models.
1. A method of counting households within a geographic region utilizing at least one geographic information service (GIS) database, a preprocessing routine, a primary build routine, a seasonal build routine, and a merge routine, wherein the primary build routine, seasonal build routine, and merge routine are in communication with the GIS database, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) receiving as input at the at least one GIS database a plurality of data sets, wherein each of the data sets comprises a plurality of households, wherein each of the plurality of households is either a non-seasonal household or a seasonal household, wherein at least one of the plurality of households is a non-seasonal household and at least one of the plurality of households is a seasonal household, and wherein each of the households is associated with a geographic sub-region within the region;
(b) calculating at the preprocessing routine a set of geographic correspondences between the sub-regions of at least two of the plurality of data sets;
(c) utilizing at the primary build routine the set of correspondences to allocate the non-seasonal households from at least one of the plurality of data sets to at least one of the geographic sub-regions, wherein the allocation step is performed by one of a plurality of models, and further wherein the plurality of models comprises at least one of a postal delivery statistics model, a postal-to-census-data boundary overlap model, and a need-allocation model;
(d) calculating an actual need for at least one of the geographic sub-regions, wherein the actual need includes a weighting factor which determines a proportion of seasonal households to be allocated to the at least one geographic sub-regions;
(e) utilizing at the seasonal build routine the set of geographic correspondences to incrementally allocate the seasonal households to at least one of the geographic sub-regions based on the calculated actual need; and
(f) merging at the merge routine the results of the steps of allocating the number of non-seasonal and seasonal households.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein one of the data sets comprises postal service delivery statistics.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein one of the data sets comprises a plurality of matched landline telephone numbers and addresses.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein one of the data sets comprises census-derived households counts.
5. The method of claim 3 , wherein one of the data sets comprises a plurality of matched geographic locations and corresponding landline telephone switches.
6. The method of claim 4 , wherein said calculating geographic correspondences step comprises the step of calculating a correspondence between a set of postal service-defined delivery areas and a set of census-defined areas.
7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising the step of creating an overlap table comprising a set of values indicating a degree of overlap between a post service-defined delivery area and a corresponding census-defined area.
8. The method of claim 6 , wherein said calculating geographic correspondences comprises the step of calculating a correspondence between a geographic location of one of the landline telephone switches and the corresponding census-defined area.
9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the census-derived areas comprise U.S. Census Bureau places, and none places, wherein each none place comprises the portion of a county that is not associated with a U.S. Census Bureau place.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein said calculating correspondences step comprises the step of calculating a household factor table for each of one of the sets of sub-regions.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein at least one of said allocating the number of non-seasonal households step and said allocating the number of seasonal households step comprises the step of spreading a subset of the households from a first geographic sub-region associated with each of the households to a second geographic sub-region.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein at least one of said allocating the number of non-seasonal households step and said allocating the number of seasonal households step further comprises the step of calculating the need associated with at least one sub-region, and said spreading step is limited to not spreading a greater number of households to such sub-region than the need associated with such sub-region.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the number of households in at least one of the sub-regions comprises a number of vacant seasonal units (VSUs) and a number of vacant for rent (VFR) units, and said step of utilizing the set of geographic correspondences to count the number of seasonal households within at least one of the sub-regions comprises the step of adjusting the number of VSUs and the number of VFR units within the number of seasonal households with respect to the at least one of the sub-regions in order to correct at least one of the plurality of data sets.
14. The method of claim 13 , wherein said step of adjusting the number of VSUs and VFR units comprises the step of calculating a VSU gate, wherein the VSU gate comprises a score indicative of the seasonality of the household counts in the at least one of the sub-regions, and wherein an adjustment to the number of VSU and VFR units is performed if the score is positive, and no adjustment to the number of VSU and VFR units is performed if the score is negative.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein said step of utilizing the set of geographic correspondences to allocate the number of seasonal households within at least one of the geographic sub-regions comprises the step of calculating a VSU restatement confidence factor.
16. The method of claim 1 , wherein said step of utilizing the set of geographic correspondences to count the number of seasonal households within at least one of the geographic sub-regions comprises the step of calculating a non-commercial seasonal unit (NCSU) total with respect to at least one of the geographic sub-regions, wherein a NCSU comprises a seasonal household without a landline telephone line.
17. The method of claim 16 , wherein said step of calculating an NCSU total is applied with respect to those geographic sub-regions associated with the presence of at least one of timeshares and resorts.