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Household Travel Survey

Welcome to the Household Travel Survey!  The Transportation Planning Board (TPB) at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) is conducting a survey of 10,000 households in the Washington region and adjacent areas to gather updated information on area wide travel patterns. This data will help guide future transportation planning as the area continues to grow and assist local governments in figuring out which transportation improvements will benefit their citizens the most.  The Washington region is among the fastest growing areas in the country.  With more jobs and people coming to the area all the time, the impacts on our burdened highway and public transportation systems are felt by all of us. If you are randomly selected to participate in this survey, then this is your opportunity to help shape the region's future.

Your Role

If you have received a mailing or a phone call about this survey, then your household has been randomly selected to participate in this survey.  We are asking you and the members of your household to participate in a short telephone interview and to record your daily travel (e.g. places visited or stops made around town or out of town) for a specified 24-hour period in a special travel diary that we will send you.  Daily travel includes the everyday travel that people do as they go about their lives, such as going to and from work, going to pick up some groceries for dinner, or going to a fast-food restaurant or a deli for lunch.  We ask that you not alter your travel patterns on your assigned travel day from the trips that you would normally make.  Make any and all of the trips that you need make on that day, just as if you were not participating in the survey.  If you don't make any trips on that particular day, that is fine too.  We do not expect that everybody goes places everyday and know that some people hardly travel at all.

For those of you making trips, we are interested in all your daily trips from going to work or school to stopping to buy a cup of coffee or just taking a walk in your neighborhood.  Trips you make going to get something to eat, going somewhere to shop, or going to visit with friends or relatives are also important to know about.  Basically, we want to learn about all the different types of places people go to, what time of day they go there and how they travel to and from them.  If you have children we are interested in their trips as well.  For children under the age of twelve, a parent or guardian will be asked  to record and report on their trips.  For children between the ages of 12 and 15, it is up to the parent or guardian to decide who will record and report on their travel.  For children age 16 and over, we ask they record and report on their trips themselves.

If you are wondering why we are also asking about your activities at particular destinations, such as at home or work, we are trying to gauge trip substitution.  For example, if you shop online or use the internet or your phone to transfer funds between different banking accounts then you are replacing some trips to the store or bank that you would otherwise need to make.  This affects our forecasts of the number and duration of trips likely to be made on any given day.

Privacy

The identity of households participating in the Household Travel Survey will be held strictly confidential. We value your privacy and we will protect your information.  We will not release any information about you to the public, to any marketers, or to any government agency.  The information you provide will be combined with that received from others to represent the characteristics and travel patterns of entire communities and will be used solely for transportation planning purposes.

Usage of the Data

Data collected in the Household Travel Survey will be used to update the region's transportation forecasting model, which predicts future demand on area roads, trains, and buses.  Currently the TPB is forecasting travel out as far as 2030.  This is necessary because transportation infrastructure improvements are very expensive and require extensive planning in advance.  If we know where and what we need to build, then we have a better chance of making improvements timely and cost effective. 

Contractor

We have awarded the contract to conduct the Household Travel Survey to NUSTATS, a nationally recognized transportation survey research firm.  NUSTATS is headquartered in Austin , Texas and has a local office in Alexandria , Virginia .  NUSTATS has conducted more than 75 regional household surveys throughout the United States .   We are very confident in their ability to collect data from households like yours in a considerate and efficient manner to provide us with good quality data with a minimal amount of intrusion on your busy life.  You can read more about NUSTATS at their website at www.nustats.com .

Some households have been asked to put a GPS logger in their household vehicles.  The purpose of this part of the survey is to collect additional travel related data.  We are working the GeoStats to implement this part of the survey.  You can find out more about GeoStats and GPS loggers at their website at www.geostats.com .

Program Contact

If you have any questions about the TPB's Household Travel Survey please call or e-mail either Clara Reschovsky or Robert Griffiths at COG using the contact information provided below.

Project Representative: Clara Reschovsky - (202) 962-3332
Project Director: Robert Griffiths - (202) 962-3280