Data to drive decisions about the built environment

The Challenge

It is difficult to find high-quality, recent data and insights about the world we live in, the way people move, and why.

Why Replica

Replica makes it possible for everyone from DOTs to transit agencies to
real estate investors to get the holistic, accurate, and up-to-date picture they
need to make planning, operational,
and investment decisions.

What We Offer

Our platform provides customers with more than a dozen datasets, 50+ metrics, and a suite of tooling and applications that span multi-modal transportation, demographics, economic activity, land use, and infrastructure.

Why It Matters

With comprehensive data, an easy-to-use interface, and access to underlying outputs, Replica customers have what they need to unlock previously hidden insight.

Insights

Replica In Action

Prioritizing the right locations for EV Charging Infrastructure
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Prioritizing the right locations for EV Charging Infrastructure.

Washington State Dept. of Commerce worked with the Timmons Group and Replica to create a tool to help applicants for the state’s Clean Transportation Community Charging Grant Program.

The state has a goal of strategically locating more than 5,000 chargers. The Replica-powered tool maps all existing charges statewide. For measuring the potential impact of future locations, the tool enables local applicants to identify parcel-level characteristics, including Trip Count and Dwell Time.

Prioritizing the right locations for EV Charging Infrastructure
How much gasoline do Americans use every day?
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How much gasoline do Americans use every day?

Americans burn millions of gallons of fuel every day to get where they’re going. With Replica, it’s possible to quantify gas usage on individual roadway segments to help inform policy and planning decisions.

We looked at the relative gasoline usage on four 1-mile stretches of roadway across the country. 

How much gasoline do Americans use every day?
How many miles a day do residents in your county travel?
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How many miles a day do residents in your county travel?

We used Replica data to publish an interactive map of the average daily miles traveled by a resident of each county in the US, and the average number of miles traveled only via walking and biking in each county each day. Some nationwide trends:

  • A Nation of Car Trips: Of the 10.7 billion miles traveled each day, 97.9%—10.5 billion miles—are traveled in a private automobile or transportation network company car, like Uber or Lyft. 
  • Active Transportation: Less than 1% of miles traveled are via active modes like walking or biking
  • Public Transportation: only 1.2% of all miles traveled are via public transportation. Across the country’s 3,143 counties, in only 16 do public transit trips make up more than 5% of total mileage
How many miles a day do residents in your county travel?
Measuring Chicago’s boost in biking
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Measuring Chicago’s Boost in Biking

With Replica, the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) quantified the remarkable impact of its continued investments in expanding and improving the city’s bike network. 

Over the last four years, Chicago has seen significant growth in cycling trips across the city. Replica worked with CDOT to analyze biking trends across the entire city, while exploring the characteristics of people and trips that saw the greatest changes. The analysis validated the agency’s “Chicago Cycling Strategy” and its approach to creating a cycling system that better serves everyone, with a focus on providing low-stress options, working with community stakeholders, and filling gaps in the citywide network.

Measuring Chicago’s boost in biking
Who’s biking, where are they going, and why
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Who’s biking, where are they going, and why

The Florida Shared-Use Non-motorized (SUN) Trail network is a developing statewide system of paved multi-use trails for bicyclists and pedestrians, physically separated from the road.

With Replica, it’s possible to zoom in on a specific trail and understand usage patterns like active mode split, demographic characteristics, and whether the trail is more popular with visitors or residents, commuters or
recreational trip takers.

Who’s biking, where are they going, and why
Obtaining population and employment figures for transit walk sheds
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Obtaining population and employment figures for transit walk sheds

With Replica, you can easily draw custom geographies for walk sheds for different transit service plans, and get summary statistics for those who live and work within the walk shed.

Jim Bunch, EIT PTP, Senior Transportation Planner at Mead & Hunt, used Replica for this analysis in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, saying, “I just used Replica. Really cool and useful. This would be almost impossible to do in GIS using TAZs and/or Block Groups.”

Obtaining population and employment figures for transit walk sheds
Mapping EV VMT by county
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Mapping EV VMT by County

Replica data can identify where around the country EV adoption is strongest, and then analyze the characteristics
of EV-specific trips.

The country has only begun to deploy the billions of dollars allocated to investing in EV charging infrastructure across the country, and Replica is helping agencies and private companies around the country figure out how to most effectively deploy those investments to best serve local populations.

Mapping EV VMT by county
Analyzing a custom walkshed for transit
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Analyzing a custom walkshed for transit ridership

Replica data can help draw walksheds for proposed and existing transit routes and stops to identify potential ridership pools and trip characteristics of those within walking distance of the proposed facilities.

METRORapid is Houston Metro’s Bus Rapid Transit system and is planning the University Corridor Project, a key component of the METRONext Plan, which will combine light rail and bus elements along a 25.3 mile corridor. The corridor provides access to four colleges and universities, and Replica data shows how students and others will benefit from this proposed service.

Analyzing a custom walkshed for transit
Measuring the home team’s economic impact
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Measuring the home team’s economic impact

With Replica Patterns, it’s possible to quantify the increase in visits due to events, policy changes, and initiatives. We analyzed how Orioles home games impacted the activation of the Inner Harbor shopping + restaurant corridor. We analyzed the activity in Inner Harbor on Summer ‘23 Tuesday and Wednesday nights when the Orioles were home, compared to nights when there wasn’t a game.

We see a 27% increase in shops and restaurants visits to the Inner Harbor on game Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Combining this insight with Replica’s consumer spend data, we can estimate that these games generate hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra spending each game night, in just one square mile.

Measuring the home team’s economic impact
TTI validates Replica’s AADT data
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Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) validates Replica’s Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) data

TTI's compared AADT and hourly volumes estimates from both Replica and Inrix, against observed data collected by TxDOT’s permanent count stations across the state.

The analysis found a high correlation between Replica’s AADT dataset and the observed counts, evidenced by a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 12.1%. Similarly, the hourly volume estimates showed a strong correlation, with a MAPE of 23.7%.

TTI’s findings underscore the close alignment between Replica's AADT and hourly volume estimates, and TxDOT’s observed data. This level of accuracy is crucial, especially considering the challenges State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) face in counting traffic across every road segment.

TTI validates Replica’s AADT data
Just how bad is George Washington Bridge traffic?
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Just how bad is George Washington Bridge traffic?

We’ve visualized typical speeds approaching the George Washington Bridge in New York from both the North and South. Serious congestion in the PM peak is clear in both directions, while not surprisingly, AM traffic is much worse coming into NYC, as commuters stream into Manhattan.

With Replica’s Network Speeds Viewer you can instantly obtain similar data for traffic choke points in your jurisdiction.

Just how bad is George Washington Bridge traffic?
Mapping population density across the 24-hour day
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Mapping population density across the 24 hour day

Even in the post-pandemic, work from home world, the flow of commuters have a major impact on our cities.

With Replica’s minute by minute data, we can look at the population density at any specific point in time.

In this visualization, we explored the flow of people in and out of New York City in a typical weekday in 2023.

In NYC, we see a noticeable flattening of the AM/PM peak – people come in later and leave earlier, creating a less extreme, but longer rush hour crush.

Mapping population density across the 24-hour day

Replica Use Case Library

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Trusted by:

Chicago
Deloitte
SEPTA
Arup
McKinney, TX
Waymo
WSP
Stantec
GNRC
Sandag
Illinois Department of Transportation
Caltrans
Seattle

Customer testimonials:

“Replica is really great because it allows for City-wide analysis to take place relatively quickly. We can all relate to getting these big policy questions and given no time to do the analysis. Being able to get insights and being able to make recommendations with a really quick turn around is extremely helpful. [...] And the fact that this data is seasonal has been a real time and money saver for the City.”
Alex Hoffman
Alex Hoffman
Deputy Director of Planning El Paso, TX
“Replica's not going to capture everything but the beauty of it is it's nimble enough to be calibrated. Replica's willing to listen and calibrate their data to a local level... We have the utmost confidence in regards to using this platform and providing the service to our members' jurisdiction.”
Tali Cantor
Tali Cantor
Director of Planning Union Sq. Partnership, NYC
"Other data sources tend to be more manual and labor-intensive. Doing surveys and interviewing businesses takes a long time; it also doesn't provide a complete picture, and it takes a lot of people to do that in an effective way. Replica helps us target investments more quickly and much more effectively. [...] This data also allows us to be more responsive. Pulling down replica data relatively quickly – within a couple of days – has been really helpful."
Tom Anderson
Tom Anderson
Director of Economic Development City of Chicago
"There’s probably a lot of people out there who don’t know what they’re missing…This has tremendous power!"
Bert Gonzalez
Bert Gonzalez
Executive Director
Replica's data related to the economics of equity has been instrumental to my work
Christopher Behr
Christopher Behr
Principal Economist
Replica is responsible for $200 mil in development in Kansas City....that’s the headline!
Frank White, Jr. III
Frank White, Jr. III
Vice President
Replica's not going to capture everything but the beauty of it is it's nimble enough to be calibrated. Replica's willing to listen and calibrate their data to a local level... We have the utmost confidence in regards to using this platform and providing the service to our members' jurisdiction
Warren Navarro
Warren Navarro
GIS Analyst
We have been using Replica at every meeting. It has been helpful as it has allowed us to provide an excellent cross-sectional analysis (which I call a Planner X-Ray). The data has helped set the stage for our meetings, which is vital in gaining the community's trust.
David Drits
David Drits
Program Management & Integration
Replica has been a fantastic tool so far. I am only beginning to dig around and find ways to incorporate the data into my workflow but I have been very satisfied with my experience to date. The team has been very responsive when other people in our office have questions. If I have ideas on how to better incorporate Replica data I feel comfortable reaching out to the team.
Andrew Frasier
Andrew Frasier
Transportation Analyst
"We know there are issues out there that are hard to quantify or visualize. Replica lets us answer a lot of long unanswered questions."
Michael Becker
Michael Becker
Director of Planning

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