ABJ40 TRB Committee on Travel Survey Methods
E-Roundtable: Updates on Current and Recent Survey efforts
Updated 1/14/13
Contact Name: Martin Kunzmann
Affiliation: Nustats
Email: Mkunzmann@Nustats.com
Region/Agency: Caltrans
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: Anticipated total retreived households of over 40K with 5099 GPS sample as well as
400 OBD devices to collect emission data. The demographics include 30 sampling strata comprised of
over 50 counties. A transit oversampling was performed. The survey is 90% with data collection.
Contact Name: Henning Eichler
Affiliation: Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink)
Email: EichlerH@scrra.net
Region/Agency: Caltrans
Type of Survey: Other Type of Survey
Survey Update: Caltrans is conducting major freeway construction on the I-5 in Southern Los Angeles
County. Research is being conducted to understand travel patterns, motivations, and attitudes towards
alternative modes of travel with the intent to design a communications strategy to encourage greater use
of public transit during the 5 year construction project. A license plate survey of I-5 commuters has been
completed and a travel survey was sent to 14,000 motorists. Wave 2 of the study will be conducted later
this year to determine motorists' responses to construction impacts and marketing messages. A
behavioral/psychographic model will be developed to explain mode choice decisions.
Contact Name: Lyndsey Avery
Affiliation: Department for Transport (United Kingdom)
Email: lyndsey.melbourne@dft.gsi.gov.uk
Region/Agency: Department for Transport (United Kingdom)
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: The contract for the National Travel Survey for Great Britain was renewed for the
period 2013-2017 during 2012. There are significant changes to the survey from 2013 onwards. These are
due to the need to collect data in a more cost-effective manner. To inform these changes we ran a public
consultation in 2011 and a data collection trial using GPS devices instead of paper travel diaries. The
outcome of these and the basis for the NTS for 2013 onwards are: - survey coverage is England only (no
collection of data for Scottish and Welsh residents) - removal of data items from the diary and
questionnaire to save time and money - retaining paper travel diaries for data collection (not using GPS
devices) Reports on the GPS trial covering fieldwork, data processing and analysis are published on the
UK Government's website. These may be useful to others who are looking to trial the use of GPS devices
in the future.
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Contact Name: Sean T. Doherty
Affiliation: Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Wildrid Laurier University
Email: sdoherty@wlu.ca
Region/Agency: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: This project involved use of a wearable video camera to track the details of everyday
human activities and travel. A small button-sized camera pointed outward from the torso was used,
along-side streaming GPS and accelerometer data. 33 subjects participated in the study for 2-3 days each,
including 8-10 hours per day of continuous recording. Ethical approval for this study was gain through
careful justification of benefits versus the risks and substantive efforts to secure the data. Through careful
review of the video data, a very highly detailed accounting of 98 distinct activity-trip event types and their
attributes was garnished, including those events typically caught in diary surveys (e.g. physical activities,
sedentary events, car trips), along with many more specific events such talking on the phone, watering
plants, taking an elevator, walking up stairs, short movements within buildings or between modes, sitting,
standing, typing on a computer, socializing, smoking, and cooking food. In only 2.9% of the cases was
the event type undistinguishable, owing mostly to dark lighting conditions. The result was tracking of an
average of 17.4 event episodes per person per hour - dramatically higher than 1-2 episodes typical tracked
using activity or time-use diaries. Not only does such data significantly expanding the richness of our
observations, it serves as a much needed and automated ground-truthing or “gold standard” for validating
and calibrating GPS algorithms that are quickly emerging in the field of travel behavior, and expanding
their capabilities in detecting other events such as physical activities. Those interested in validating their
various detection algorithms against this dataset are encouraged to contact me.
Contact Name: Lisa Aultman-Hall
Affiliation: University of Vermont
Email: laultman@uvm.edu
Region/Agency: USDOT through the UTC program
Type of Survey: Other Type of Survey
Survey Update: Overnight Travel Survey - once per month for one year survey of residents of Vermont,
California and Alabama. Data is collected on-line and includes planned trips as well as trips undertaken.
Contact Name: Rebekah Anderson
Affiliation: Ohio Department of Transportation
Email: rebekah.anderson@dot.state.oh.us
Region/Agency: NOACA/ODOT
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: Cleveland, OH HIS (100% GPS) will be finishing the survey in February. Data should
be available fall 2013. GeoStats is the consultant.
Contact Name: Rebekah Anderson
Affiliation: Ohio Department of Transportation
Email: rebekah.anderson@dot.state.oh.us
Region/Agency: GCRTA
Type of Survey: Transit Survey
Survey Update: The Cleveland, OH Boarding-Alighting Survey will be finished in early 2013. OB
Survey will be conducted in Jan-Mar.
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Contact Name: Rebekah Anderson
Affiliation: Ohio Department of Transportation
Email: rebekah.anderson@dot.state.oh.us
Region/Agency: ODOT
Type of Survey: Transit Survey
Survey Update: ETC will be conducting both BA and OB surveys for select routes in Columbus, OH as
a part of a research project to determine what percent of bus trips needs a BA survey, if OB surveys can
be refreshed using a BA survey and if APC data can be used in lieu of BA surveys.
Contact Name: Rebekah Anderson
Affiliation: Ohio Department of Transportation
Email: rebekah.anderson@dot.state.oh.us
Region/Agency: ODOT
Type of Survey: External Station Survey
Survey Update: ODOT will have an RFP in January or February seeking a consultant to determine
whether purchased OD data can be used in lieu of external station survey data.
Contact Name: Guy Rousseau
Affiliation: Atlanta Regional Commission
Email: grousseau@atlantaregional.com
Region/Agency: Atlanta Regional Commission
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: The Atlanta Regional Commission recently completed a place-based Household
Activity Travel Survey. The purpose of the survey is to update ARC’s activity-based travel demand
model and get a better understanding of travel behavior in Atlanta's 20-County Region. Households were
randomly selected to participate in the survey. Those agreeing to participate were assigned a one-day
travel period and asked to keep track of all trips during that period. Information was collected from
10,278 households. When weighted to reflect the population of the region, the households represent
25,810 persons, 93,713 trips and 21,270 vehicles. The survey features a 10% GPS sub-sample (wearable
and in-vehicle). For more details, see: www.atlantaregional.com/transportation/travel-demandmodel/household-travel-survey and
www.atlantaregional.com/File%20Library/Transportation/Travel%20Demand%20Model/tp_mug_archou
seholdtravelsurveyanalysis_120712.pdf
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Contact Name: Jeff Gonder
Affiliation: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
Email: Jeff.Gonder@nrel.gov
Region/Agency: Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
Type of Survey: Other Type of Survey
Survey Update: This is an update about the Transportation Secure Data Center (TSDC) hosted at NREL,
which includes data from many different GPS travel surveys. You may visit the website
(www.nrel.gov/tsdc) to view the latest available datasets and to subscribe or unsubscribe from occasional
e-mail updates. Here is a run down of recent news highlights on the TSDC:
 Many researchers have taken advantage of the cleansed data that is readily available to download
from the website (the table at the end of this update lists many of the available datasets). If you
generated any publications using TSDC data in 2012 or expect to publish in 2013, please let us
know about it!
 Fewer users have taken advantage of the secure web portal for working with detailed spatial data,
so if you do have an application for which the cleansed data is insufficient, feel free to apply for
access to the secure area. This area may be accessed on-line from the comfort of your own desk
after completing a simple application describing your desired analysis and receiving approval. If
you are interested in more information or would like to apply for an access account in this area
please contact Jeff.Gonder@nrel.gov.
 For anyone interested in a roughly 10-minute overview of the TSDC and/or an additional 10minute discussion of its operating procedures, there is now a webinar with this content posted on
the website that may be viewed at any time. If you would like to save the date, we are also
planning a webinar for March 14 at 1 pm Eastern to demonstrate some of the available ways to
access/analyze TSDC data and to field audience questions. If you subscribe to receive e-mail
updates you will receive information on how to connect to the webinar closer to that date.
Finally, here is a summary of currently available datasets:
Data Source
Date(s) Collected
Vehicles
Vehicle Days Study Length
Atlanta Regional Commission Travel Survey* 2011 1,653 8,589 7 days
Chicago Regional Household Travel Inventory * 2007 408
1,773 7 days
Puget Sound Regional Council Traffic Choices Study 2004-2006
484
145,27318 months
Southern California Association of Governments Regional Travel Survey
2001-2002
624
1,208 2 days
Texas Department of Transportation Travel Surveys from Austin, Houston, San Antonio and many other
cities 2002-2011
3,404 5,258 1-2 days
*The ARC and CMAP data also include a wearable GPS component to capture other travel modes.
Contact Name: Timothy Michalowski, GIS Director
Affiliation: Abt SRBI Inc.
Email: t.michalowski@srbi.com
Region/Agency: North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG)
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: Abt SRBI Inc. has been selected to deploy GPS devices with processing and analysis of
GPS trip data for the North Central Texas Household Travel Survey Technology Demonstrations project.
The main objective of this project is to demonstrate to NCTCOG how available technologies can be used
to collect information, identify their weaknesses and advantages including documented success rate of the
technology in practice, and provide a comprehensive unbiased statistical analysis of the accuracy and
reliability of each method and an estimation of the associated costs.
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Contact Name: Timothy Michalowski, GIS Director
Affiliation: Abt SRBI Inc.
Email: t.michalowski@srbi.com
Region/Agency: New York City Economic Development Corportation
Type of Survey: Commercial Vehicle / Freight Survey
Survey Update: Abt SRBI Inc. has been selected to complete GPS analysis and processing of air-cargo
truck routes to and from JFK International Airport. The project aim is to understand the complex
movements of trucks developing a “profile” of the routing choices of semi-trailers to and from cargo
facilities at JFK Airport by analyzing and mapping the currently collected GPS data from the vehicles.
Abt SRBI will collect and process thousands of GPS based air-cargo trips and utilize the NYC Citywide
Centerline GIS road network (CSCL).
Contact Name: Laurie Wargelin
Affiliation: Abt SRBI
Email: l.wargelin@srbi.com
Region/Agency: The Metropolitan Council
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: While the 12,000+ household Greater Minneapolis HTS concluded in 2012, the data
usage is on-going. Collaborative efforts between MetCouncil, Cambridge Systematics, and Abt SRBI
have resulted in several presentations at TRB, AAPOR, and the upcoming Application Conference in
May. Here is a brief overview of this research:
 TRB 91st Annual Conference: this paper reported findings on the effectiveness of incentives in
securing cooperation with households in a burdensome GPS validation effort. Findings suggested
incentives may not always be necessary depending on the study population, offering larger
incentives are not always the best option, and data quality may or may not be impacted by the
type of incentive a household receives.
 American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR): this paper looked at conditions
whereby households completed the study but did so without any prompting by Abt SRBI. The
research found the busiest and most civically engaged households were more likely to respond in
these conditions. The research also provided new measures for survey topic and civic
engagement.
 Applications Conference 2013: research staff at MetCouncil, Cambridge Systematics and Abt
SRBI had two papers accepted this year. The first is a review of the Greater Minneapolis
household travel survey effort, lessons learned, best practices, and socio-demographic
comparisons. The second builds off findings from the AAPOR paper and investigates the
construct of “busyness”. The paper will investigate measures of “busyness” and the effect of
“busy” vs. “non-busy” conditions on travel diary reporting. We will also examine the extent to
which “busy” households vs. “non-busy” households differ significantly on key geographic and
demographic characteristics, and what insight this analysis might provide in regard to under/over
travel reporting by “busy” households.
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Contact Name: Laurie Wargelin
Affiliation: Abt SRBI
Email: l.wargelin@srbi.com
Region/Agency: Southern California Association of Governments
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: The SCAG Augment Survey is a full travel inventory of 4,000+ households in the
SCAG 6-county region. An additional GPS effort recruits households to carry GPS units on their person
for 3-days or place them in their vehicles for a period of 7-days. Regularly two devices are used to
capture these data; Abt SRBI used a singular device for both approaches. The final stage of the project
(Add-on) recontacts 3,000 households to gather additional data to enhance statewide/regional databases
with socioeconomic, economic, environmental, and travel behavior indicators appropriate for the Los
Angeles (SCAG). Data collection is entering its final months with an estimated wrap-up mid-year.
Contact Name: Laurie Wargelin
Affiliation: Abt SRBI
Email: l.wargelin@srbi.com
Region/Agency: Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: The DVRPC household travel survey of 10,000+ households in the Delaware Valley 9county region (NJ and PA) is well underway with plans to wrap later this year. The study includes:
 A sampling plan stratifying households by state, county, and area type and includes an
oversample of transit propensity. The oversample was derived using spatial GIS analytics to
identify Census tracts in areas previously scored as high transit areas based on transit availability,
population density and employment.
 A non-response follow-up survey (NRFU). The NRFU looked closely at some of the underlying
motives for low study compliance among sub-groups.
 A public outreach effort featuring a video, website, brochures, strategic communications and
customized branding and marketing.
 A subsample of households carrying Abt SRBI’s customized passive GPS device Beyond study
execution, DVRPC and Abt SRBI are conducting experiments to determine effectiveness of
contingent and non-contingent incentives during the retrieval of travel diaries and techniques for
improved mode response rates. Consideration is also being given to the pilot of Smartphone GPS
data collection in the last phases of GPS subsample data collection. We look forward to sharing
these efforts at future conferences.
Contact Name: Laurie Wargelin
Affiliation: Abt SRBI
Email: l.wargelin@srbi.com
Region/Agency: New York Metropolitan Transportation Council
Type of Survey: Work Place / Establishment Survey
Survey Update: In 2013 SRBI will be priming the first ever Regional Establishment Travel Survey
(RES) in the greater New York City Region. A first of its kind for the region, the study will develop an
attraction based model of trip generation that will then be calibrated to the standard household demand
driven model. Abt SRBI is partnering in this effort with PB, Cambridge Systematics, TTI, VHB, and
Arch Street Communications. The data collected will allow modeling based on a representative
commercial sample as well as a sample of special visitor generators. In addition to collecting data
directly from over six hundred area businesses, we will conduct an oversample of taxi trips and combine
survey results with the taxi’s built-in GPS data.
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Contact Name: Andrea Moe
Affiliation: AirSage
Email: amoe@airsage.com
Region/Agency: SARPC
Type of Survey: Other Type of Survey
Survey Update: AirSage did a study in Mobile, AL looking at the average weekday travel over the
course of the month of May 2012. We recorded 1,560,501 trips made by 192,107 devices over 12
weekdays (4 weeks x Tue,Wed,Thur). We KNOW that of the 192,107 devices seen, 88,092 (46%) were
residents for the month (i.e. spent more than 20 nights in Mobile). We also KNOW that of the 1,560,501
trips analyzed, only 82% were made by resident devices.
Contact Name: Susan Swain
Affiliation: Westat
Email: SusanSwain@Westat.com
Region/Agency: Nashville Area MPO
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: Data collection concluded in November with 6400 HHs completing the travel survey
and basic health questionnaire. 600 of these HHs also participated in GPS, physical activity, and extensive
health survey subsample.
Contact Name: Jean Wolf
Affiliation: Westat
Email: JeanWolf@Westat.com
Region/Agency: Northeast Ohio Area-wide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) and Ohio DOT
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: This GPS based travel survey will conclude data collection in March with at least 4250
complete HHs.
Contact Name: Jean Wolf
Affiliation: Westat
Email: JeanWolf@westat.com
Region/Agency: CalTrans, MTC, and CEC
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: The GPS augments to the California Statewide travel survey will be completed in
February 2013. The final GPS sample size will include 400 HHs statewide in a wearable GPS component,
3100 in the MTC 100% wearable GPS addon, 400 in the statewide vehicle GPS component, and 1200
HHs in the CEC-sponsored GPS and OBD sample.
Contact Name: Susan Swain
Affiliation: Westat
Email: SusanSwain@westat.com
Region/Agency: North Central Texas Council of Governments
Type of Survey: Other Type of Survey
Survey Update: Westat will be working with NCTCOG to evaluate the 2009 NHTS data collected in the
region to prepare for the upcoming regional travel survey.
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Contact Name: Susan Swain
Affiliation: Westat
Email: SusanSwain@westat.com
Region/Agency: Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
Type of Survey: Household Travel Survey
Survey Update: More than 4800 HHs participated in this geographically-focused HH travel survey
conducted in 14 communities in the Metro Washington DC region in the Fall of 2011 and Spring of 2012.
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