Caltrans to Survey California Travelers; Participation Encouraged

Survey Will Sample 10,000 Bay Area Households to Help Regional Agencies Develop Long-Range Transportation and Housing/Land-Use Plan

News provided by

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

Mar 21, 2012, 05:35 ET

OAKLAND, Calif., March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is supporting a statewide survey of California residents' travel behavior as part of an effort to help government agencies plan for transportation investments. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is conducting the comprehensive two-phase "California Household Travel Survey" with support from the California Energy Commission and all 18 Metropolitan Planning Organizations in California, including MTC.

MTC is contributing funding to the statewide effort to increase the Bay Area survey size. In total, approximately 10,000 Bay Area households are being surveyed about their demographic and travel characteristics to help inform the development of Plan Bay Area, the region's long-range transportation and housing/land-use plan. Data collected by the travel survey will also be used to better understand the travel behavior of different groups within the Bay Area and to inform transportation funding and policy decisions.

"We encourage all Bay Area residents who are invited to participate, even if they do not use transit or travel much," said MTC Chair Adrienne J. Tissier. "The findings will help us make decisions about future transit service improvements and infrastructure enhancements."

A randomly selected sample of California households will be contacted asking for their participation in the survey. If a contacted household chooses to participate, an independent survey firm, PTV NuStats, will ask questions about their household, including some initial questions about their travel habits (Phase 1). All participants, including residents who do not have a landline telephone or have an unlisted number, will be offered the option to take the survey online, or they may call a toll free number to take the survey by phone.

After the initial household recruitment interview, respondents will be sent travel diaries for all household members to complete on an assigned travel date. Household members will fill out the travel diaries indicating the places they went and the times they traveled, as well as how they got to and from each location and what they did at each location (Phase 2). PTV NuStats will collect travel information from approximately 52,000 California households. Some of these households will be asked to use Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) devices to record actual vehicle and/or person movements and engine operation. About 3,000 households within the Bay Area will be asked to carry personal GPS devices, with a much smaller number asked to use the vehicle GPS devices.

The results from this survey will also help the sponsoring agencies develop plans for transportation improvements that affect mobility, access to jobs, air quality and quality of life in the region.

The survey will continue until February 2013.

For additional information, visit http://www.californiatravelsurvey.com/

MTC is the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area's transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency.

SOURCE Metropolitan Transportation Commission