Household Travel Surveys: Proposed Standards and Guidelines

摘要

Clearly some sort of guidance needs to be given in relation to design phases of travel surveys, travel survey instrument design, conducting travel surveys, and the coding and assessment of the data obtained. The benefits of these standards far outweigh the costs involved in implementation. In addition, these issues may apply equally to surveys in general; thus, demonstrating the usefulness of these standards. In this chapter, forty items in travel surveys were described. Recommendations for each item were listed along with justifications for the recommendations. Standardisation in other areas in survey research still needs to be conducted; thus, further research efforts are required. It is also recognised that a number of the items discussed in this chapter are applicable to surveys in the US and are not necessarily directly applicable in other countries or contexts. However, one of the challenges to the profession is to determine what of these standards can be adopted in other countries, and what needs adaptation to specific circumstances and contexts. Overall, standardisation will not only make travel survey results comparable, but will enable the collection of higher quality data, by developing better survey instruments. Good survey design should lead to a reduction in the number of nonresponses, a problematic issue across all fields in social science and behavioural research.