ACS Data Users Group

Hello, I am searching data on the evolution of the number of vehicle by states, and other variables if availables, to see the evolution since years. Where can we find time series data of the ACS ?

Rémy

Rémy,

If you're looking at the number of vehicles registered in each state, year by year, maybe the US Department of Transportation data would be better? They have a dataset "Motor Vehicle Registrations, 1900 - 2023" that has variables for the state, year, and types of vehicles.
https://data.transportation.gov/Roadways-and-Bridges/Motor-Vehicle-Registrations-1900-2023-MV-1-wide-fo/hwtm-7xmz/about_data

But maybe you want ACS data about US households, such as "VEH" (number of vehicles available) and "JWTRNS" (means of transportation to work, car, truck, or van, verses bus, public transit, etc.). If ACS is what you want, maybe the iPUMS (https://usa.ipums.org/usa/) is the most convenient source for time-series ACS data, where they show you which years your variables of interest are available.

Patrick Burns
Economic Roundtable
Los Angeles, CA

Thank you very much for your answer Patrick. Both of them are interesting for me, spent time on the department of transportation website and on the census bureau website for the ACS without finding this. So it is really helpful for me.

Rémy Molinié

HEC Montréal

Rémy,

ACS Table B25046 is "Aggregate Number of Vehicles Available by Tenure", which is available at the state level for 2023 at this link: https://data.census.gov/table?q=b25046&g=010XX00US$0400000&d=ACS+1-Year+Estimates+Detailed+Tables.

To get other years, at the top of the table to the right of the table title is a series of "buttons". The sixth one over is "Year". Click on that to get other years.

To download the data, click on the "Excel", "CSV", or "ZIP" buttons farther to the right.

Thanks, Dave Raglin

Thank you very much Dave this is really interesting. Just to be sure, the years data available for the ACS are only from 2010 to 2023 ?

Thank you for your detailed answer

Rémy,

The data.census.gov site only has data from 2010 on. However, previous years are available from a couple of other sources.

Data from the API are available for 2005 to 2009. For those estimates, here is the URL for 2005: api.census.gov/.../acs1 . This creates a CSV file that is downloaded to your computer and can be opened in Excel, providing the estimates and MOEs. (For 2006 to 2009, just change the year in the URL.)

Data for 2000 (the first year ACS was conducted nationally) to 2004 can be found at the ACS's FTP site. For 2004, you can go to https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data/archive/2004/BaseTables0402004.csv . That will download a CSV file that is downloaded to your computer and can be opened in Excel. That includes all of the base tables for all state--you will have to go down to find table B25046. (For 2000 to 2003, just change the year in the URL, and for those years, it is Table H043.)

Thanks, Dave Raglin

Once again, thank you for your detailed reply, which was very helpful. Is there a place where I could find a list of all the arrays (with their number like: B25046) because potentially other variables could be interesting for me?

Thank you very much for your help

Rémy Molinié, HEC Montréal

Rémy,

You can go to the ACS web site at www.census.gov/acs for your ACS documentation needs. In particular, this page has spreadsheets with table shells: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/technical-documentation/table-shells.html.

Thanks, Dave

Thank you very much for your time.

Rémy Molinié, HEC Montréal