Design and Response Quality in a One-Year Longitudinal Survey of Overnight and Long-Distance Travel

Abstract

This paper describes a unique twelve-month online panel survey of overnight travel, assessing participant retention and feedback in inform future long-distance travel survey design. Diverse methods were used to recruit 1,220 initial participants, 51.5% of whom completed the panel. Connections to a university or the research team positively impacted retention. Heavy traveling had a small but negative impact. Survey feedback indicated the importance of accounting for repeated trips and complex combinations of modes, travel parties, and purposes. The survey demonstrates that a monthly panel framed around overnight stays is a strong candidate for collecting detailed long-distance travel data.