Missing data for a particular question or item is called item nonresponse. It occurs when a respondent fails to provide an answer to a required item. The ACS also considers invalid answers as item nonresponse. The Census Bureau uses imputation methods that either use rules to determine acceptable answers or use answers from similar housing units or people who provided the item information. One type of imputation, allocation, involves using statistical procedures, such as within-household or nearest neighbor matrices populated by donors, to impute for missing values.

The data on vehicles available were obtained from Housing Question 9 in the 2009 American Community Survey. The question was asked at occupied housing units. These data show the number of passenger cars, vans, and pickup or panel trucks of one-ton capacity or less kept at home and available for the use of household members. Vehicles rented or leased for one month or more, company vehicles, and police and government vehicles are included if kept at home and used for non-business purposes. Dismantled or immobile vehicles are excluded. Vehicles kept at home but used only for business purposes also are excluded. The availability of vehicles provides information for numerous transportation programs. When the data is used in conjunction with place-of-work and journey-to-work data, the information can provide insight into vehicle travel and aid in forecasting future travel and its effect on transportation systems. The data also serve to aid in the development of emergency and evacuation planning, special transportation services, and forecasting future energy consumption and needs.