Household Travel Surveys
Co-Chairs: Jimmy Armoogum and Kenneth Joh
Mission Statement
The objectives of the Household Travel Survey subcommittee are to monitor and communicate advances in household travel survey practice. This is an ongoing activity that includes calls for papers, identification of priorities for research, and inviting speakers using state-of-the-art methods and technologies to speak at our annual meetings. This committee offers an important platform at a time when travel surveys play an evolving role in providing detailed information to support transportation planning that is not available from other data sources.
Future Activities
The subcommittee’s activities over the next three years will focus on elevating awareness of the subcommittee’s mission among transportation data users and household travel survey methodologists. The subcommittee plans to accomplish this in the following ways:
First, the subcommittee will communicate advances in travel survey practice and related research needs through the Travel Survey Manual and TRB Research Needs Statements. In doing so, the subcommittee members will integrate best practices in survey designs and methods from the survey industry, case studies from agencies leveraging both passive travel behavior data and survey data, and lessons learned as the transportation community seeks to balance budget with data needs. By increasing awareness among practitioners and users of household travel survey data advances, the subcommittee hopes to generate interest and participation among a variety of practitioners, data users and data producers.
Second, the subcommittee will issue specific calls for papers and organize sessions at the TRB annual meeting, through its parent committee (Travel Survey Methods) and in partnership with other Transportation Research Board (TRB) committees. The calls for papers will attract attention to the subcommittee and provide a forum for presentation of the household travel survey research agenda and communicating advances in the state of the practice. Collaboration with other committees allows the subcommittee to identify mutual interests and areas where others share concerns that the subcommittee’s research agenda will address.
Third, the subcommittee will continue to use its annual meeting agenda as an opportunity to present emerging methods and approaches that serve to both identify research needs and continue the conversation of the importance of travel surveys in supporting transportation policy and planning activities. These goals and future activities will enable the Household Travel Survey Methods Research Subcommittee to establish further connections within the TRB organization and bring attention to the need for survey methods research, the potential benefits of this research to travel data quality, and the positive impacts these benefits can have for those who use travel survey data alongside passive travel behavior data for planning and decision-making.
Collaborating Committees
The subcommittee has significant interaction with the parent committee, Travel Survey Methods, and its peer subcommittees. In addition, interaction is expected with the Committee on Traveler Behavior and Values and other committees interested in travel data to support policy and planning activities.