Investigating Travel Survey Representativeness

Details

• Creators:
  Fong, Amy Z. ; Shaw, F. Atiyya
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Michigan. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program ; United States. Department of Transportation. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology ; National Center for Understanding Future Travel Behavior and Demand (TBD)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Travel surveys
  • Data quality
  • Statistical sampling
  • Surveys
  • Transportation planning
  • Forecasting
  • Literature reviews
  • Benchmarks
  • Households
  • Sampling
  More +
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; Minneapolis-Saint Paul (Minnesota) metropolitan area
• Edition:
  Final Report: 2023-2024
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program
• Abstract:
  Household travel surveys are a critical data source for transportation planning and forecasting, offering insights into traveler behavior such as trip purpose, mode choice, travel time, and temporal patterns. However, declining response rates, increasing response biases, and measurement errors pose growing challenges to survey data quality. This project develops and applies a methodological framework to evaluate the representativeness and behavioral bias of household travel surveys. Using 2021–2022 data from the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan region, we examine how oversampling, the inclusion of convenience samples, and calibration weighting affect the bias and precision of travel behavior estimates. The framework builds upon a review of recruitment practices, sampling methods, and survey evaluation techniques, including findings from multiple metropolitan regions and recent literature. The resulting approach offers an accessible, theoretically grounded, and practically relevant tool for assessing survey design and improving data quality.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  69A3552344815 ; 69A3552348320
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/91980/dot_91980_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 812.88 KB]
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:e1d38bad86c2b07d1d91bc044d721f57478fea3d142cc20c1492a4f2876e921be3fbeb2f9f69a4aeb66082a2e8b3cc6b83e13d28605169ef07360653fcea371c