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TRANSPORT SURVEY QUALITY AND INNOVATION

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TRANSPORT SURVEY QUALITY AND INNOVATION

Edited by

PETER STOPHER

University of Sydney, Australia

PETER JONES

University of Westminster, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan

India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2003

Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Editor or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-786-35955-1

Preface

The primary goals of this book are to move the practice of transport surveys forward, by determining how to measure and assess transport survey quality, to identify emerging issues that may affect the relevance of quality and performance measures in the next decade, and to consider the suitability of performance measures largely developed in the USA/Europe for application in other cultural contexts. In part, a move towards higher quality requires greater comparability among surveys, and the adoption of a minimum level of what may be termed “good practice” in the conduct of transport surveys. What constitutes good practice in transport surveys has not been defined previously and is a key issue that this book attempts to address.

This book brings together a number of papers on the subject of transport survey quality and innovation, which are drawn from a conference held at Berg-en-Dal in the Kruger Park, South Africa, in August 2001. The conference in South Africa – “Transport Survey Quality and Innovation: How to Recognise It and How to Achieve It” – was the latest in a series of conferences on the topic of household travel surveys and related survey mechanisms, begun in the late 1970s by a small invitational conference in Eibsee, Germany. Conferences were held subsequently in Hungerford Hill, Australia in 1983 (Ampt, Richardson, and Brög, 1985), Washington, DC, in 1990 (Ampt, Richardson, and Meyburg, 1992), Steeple Aston, England in 1996 (Bonsall and Ampt, 1996), and Eibsee, Germany in 1997 (TRB, 2000).

The early conferences covered various aspects of travel survey methods and the application of emerging techniques in many contexts. At the Eibsee conference in 1997, the focus was changed to that of survey quality. The conference in South Africa has continued that focus, but has also broadened the view from a concentration on the household travel survey to all travel-related surveys. The South Africa conference also had a higher proportion of delegates from developing countries than previous conferences. This permitted the conference to explore in more depth the application of travel survey methods in a wider range of cultural contexts and to gain from the practical experiences of professionals in those countries.

While the issues and challenges faced in developing countries appear on the surface to be substantially different than those faced by developed countries, this is deceptive. What became apparent from the conference was the scope for “technology transfer” in both directions. As a result of the increasing ethnic diversity experienced by most developed countries, many of the same issues and challenges that are faced by developing countries are emerging in all countries – although they may often be ignored. It also became evident that a number of innovations in travel survey procedures and methods were occurring in countries outside North America and Western Europe, that would usually be overlooked by researchers in those parts of the world.

The goals of this conference were to go beyond conventional transport survey design and methodology, to look at future developments in transport surveys, and the methods by which high standards of performance and quality could be achieved. The conference objectives were as follows:

• Determine how to measure and assure the quality of transport surveys from design through reporting;

• Develop an expert view of the predominant data needs of modellers, policy analysts and transport planners for the next decade, and consider the relevance of the proposed quality and performance measures to those needs;

• Establish the strengths and weaknesses, and roles of different survey instruments and methods;

• Develop strategies for the use of multi-instrument approaches to deal with difficult issues;

• Identify potential applications of new technology in personal interviews; and

• Define what is acceptable with respect to item nonresponse, data repair, and imputation of values on which there is item nonresponse.

The conference sought to explore the experiences of professionals in different countries with respect to these issues of quality, performance, and design of transport surveys. The conference also sought to determine the feasibility of establishing methods by which each country can develop consistent standards that take into account cultural differences between countries.

To achieve these goals and objectives, the conference was organised around fourteen workshops dealing with particular aspects of survey quality and innovation, shown in Table 1. Each workshop was structured around a resource paper, together with a varying number of offered papers that fitted within the workshop's purview. The workshops were organised in two blocks of seven, so that each delegate was able to participate in two workshops during the conference. Each workshop was provided with a one paragraph description of its focus.

The conference opened with keynote papers, that were intended to focus delegates on the issues of travel survey quality and the challenges faced by developing countries, subsequently to be picked up by the individual workshops. This was followed by a plenary session containing several papers that dealt with the processes involved in carrying out different types of travel surveys, which cut across many of the workshop themes.

The keynote paper by Stopher and Jones (2001) set out a framework for establishing quality at all stages of the travel survey process, by identifying the key elements of the process that lend themselves to the possible establishment of quality standards and guidelines. The final section of the paper suggested how the fourteen workshops might contribute to the framework, by offering guidelines or proposing standards for one or more of the specific elements, as shown in Figure 1. It was expected that all workshops would contribute to the section (Q) on Quality Performance Standards, to varying degrees. In addition, most workshops were asked to consider the relevance of advances in their area in terms of the purposes for which the survey data are used, in relation to one or more of: understanding travel behaviour, policy development, and modelling.

The figure distinguishes between stages where it was suggested that a workshop should make a major contribution (dark shading) and stages where some more limited input might be appropriate (lighter shading). However, workshops were invited to review all the stages and the individual elements discussed in the paper, and to contribute additionally to others where the members wished to do so.

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Figure 1:

Suggested Areas Where Workshops Might Contribute to the Framework

After the conference, each workshop contributed a summary of its discussions, including the scope for developing quality standards or guidelines in its particular area, and any recommendations for issues to be addressed in the future. These summaries, together with the resource papers, and a selection of the offered papers, plenary papers and keynote papers form the basis of this book. However, the reader should note that the order in which the material is presented in this book has been changed from the number order of the workshops, to group material to more closely reflect key stages in a survey.

Peter Jones

Peter Stopher

June, 2002

Acknowledgements

The conference in South Africa was conceived and directed by the International Steering Committee on Transport Survey Conferences (ISCTSC), under the co-chairmanship of Peter Stopher and Peter Jones. The ISCTSC was set up in 1997 to “…organise periodic international conferences dealing with research subjects relevant to the conduct of transport surveys that support planning, policy, modelling, monitoring, and related issues for urban, rural, regional, intercity, and international person, vehicle, and commodity movements”. The ISCTSC was assisted in organising the local arrangements and logistics by a Local Organising Committee in South Africa, under the chairmanship of Pat van der Reis. The conference co-chairs would like to acknowledge the hard work put in by these two committees, the members of which are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

We would also like to acknowledge the workshop chairs and rapporteurs, who contributed substantially to the success of the conference; and Lyn Nurick and Shirlee Smit who assisted the LOC and also staffed the conference registration desk throughout the conference.

We are also grateful to the following organisations who provided sponsorships for the conference:

• The U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration

• NuStats, USA

• AVV Transport Research Centre, Dutch Ministry of Transport

• The Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Sydney

• Committee on Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa

The sponsorship of these organisations enabled a number of scholarships to be awarded to delegates, primarily from countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, none of whom would have been able to attend without this assistance. Their presence greatly enriched the conference and has also contributed subsequently to dissemination of good practice in travel surveys in a number of countries.