A Seven-Day Smartphone-Based GPS Household Travel Survey in Indiana

Abstract

Traditional household travel surveys (HTS) typically collect a single day of travel from a sample of residents in a region. The picture of regional travel is thus based upon a sample of households’ travel on a sampling of days. A growing body of work suggests that longer data collection periods are warranted to provide improved data for modeling purposes and understanding trends. However, for longer periods of data collection to be successful, all aspects of projects must be implemented with a mindfulness toward the impacts on respondent burden. Scalability is also a challenge when coupled with the demand for accurate GPS data and ever more detailed survey data for modeling purposes. The In the Moment (ITM) Travel Study project, conducted by RSG on behalf of the Madison County Council of Governments (MCCOG) in Anderson, Indiana and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Planning and Office of Transportation Policy Studies, addressed these challenges by fully replacing the traditional telephone and web household travel diary survey experience with smartphone GPS data collection over a seven-day period. The smartphone’s sensors passively collected location data (the “where and when” of travel data), while in-app survey questions obtain the remaining essential HTS data elements (the “why, who, and how” of travel behavior). The goal is to prompt respondents to answer these in-app survey questions in close to “real-time” at each trip destination and in a very low burden way, which facilitates the ability to conduct these projects for the longer data collection period.