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Community Transportation Summary

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    • What's in this Dataset?

    Description

    Summary of the types of transportation available to each community. Includes information on airports, roads, the state ferry, harbors and docks, coastal status, and cargo barge. The price a community pays for energy depends significantly on the transportation options available for fuel and construction materials.

    Published

    2026-01-12

    Topics

    Infrastructure

    Keywords

    Ferry Road Ship Barge Airport Community Harbor Dock Coastal

    Format

    csv

    Licenses

    This work is licensed under CC-BY-4.0

    Contributors

    Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)
    2025 • Data Curator

    1. Identified data source and integrated it into the data pipeline.
    2. Complied community names, locations, and FIPS identifiers for AEDG
    3. Joined transportation data with AEDG communities to create this dataset

    Source Code: acep-aedg/aedg-etl-2024
    Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)
    2026-01-12 • Data Curator

    Documented sources and defined the data dictionary using OEMetadata (Frictionless) formatted metadata https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15019561.

    Source Code: acep-aedg/aedg-metadata

    Sources

    Places (Cities and CDPs) Shapefile
    This is an ESRI Shapefile for use in GIS software that contains place data from the 2020 US Census for Alaska. The definition of places includes all incorporated cities as well as Census Designated Places (CDPs). Each geographic unit is identified using Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) numbers. Coordinate System: North American Datum 1983 Alaska Albers. Source: 2020 US Census, PL94-171 Redistricting File; 2020 US Census Tiger Shapefiles. Documentation of field names: https://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/cen/maps/gis/Places2020.pdf. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development has had a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau since 1981 to assist with geographic programs and help Alaskans find Census Bureau data. AEDG uses this list to define canonical community locations to use in spatial joins and relations, to associate places with FIPS codes, and to establish total community population.
    Alaska Communities
    The Alaska Communities dataset is the reference list of place locations, represented as points, used by the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs (DCRA). In includes community locations but for historical reasons, it is a mix of Communities, Places of Interest, Borough/Census Area as well as Alaska centroid. DCRA uses it to link communities to their internal key GUID used elsewhere in their systems. AEDG uses this list to define canonical community names since, as free text, these can vary in different contexts, and to establish locations to use in spatial joins and relations.
    Community Transportation Overview
    Summary of the types of transportation available to each community. Includes information on airports, roads, the state ferry, harbors and docks, coastal status, and cargo barge. Most communities in Alaska typically have an unmanned general aviation airport of which Alaska DOT P&F owns and operates 237 airports. This data is relatively static. AEDG uses these data to display transportation options because these greatly influence the prices paid for fuel and other energy sources. Communities who rely only on air freight will likely pay a much higher amount for energy.

    Fields (10)

    Long Name Description Field Name Type Unit
    FIPS Code 5-digit Federal Information Processing Series (FIPS) code identifier for places and boroughs (counties), assigned and maintained by the Census Bureau fips_code string
    Community Name Name of the community name string
    Airport Answers the question: Does the Community have an airport? ("t" for yes, and "f" for no) airport boolean
    Harbor Dock Answers the question: Does the Community have a harbor with a dock? ("t" for yes, and "f" for no) harbor_dock boolean
    State Ferry Answers the question: Is the Community served by a state ferry? ("t" for yes, and "f" for no) state_ferry boolean
    Cargo Barge Answers the question: Is the Community served by a cargo barge? ("t" for yes, and "f" for no) cargo_barge boolean
    Road Connection Answers the question: Is the Community connected to a road system to other communities? ("t" for yes, and "f" for no) road_connection boolean
    Coastal Answers the question: Is the Community located on the coast? ("t" for yes, and "f" for no) coastal boolean
    Road or Ferry Answers the question: Is the Community served by a state ferry or a road? ("t" for yes, and "f" for no) road_or_ferry boolean
    Description Narrative description description string
    fips_code name airport harbor_dock state_ferry cargo_barge road_connection coastal road_or_ferry description

    How to Cite This Dataset

    Copy the reference below.

    Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). Community Transportation Summary. Version v3.0. Alaska Energy Data Gateway, 2026. https://akenergygateway.alaska.edu/explore/data/public_transportation. Accessed April 19, 2026.
    Need to cite the entire Alaska Energy Data Gateway?

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