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Combining web and face-to-face in travel surveys: comparability challenges?

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Abstract

Response rates for household travel surveys are tending to fall, and it seems unlikely that this trend will be reversed in the future. In recent years, travel data collection methods have evolved in order to obtain reliable data that are sufficiently detailed to feed increasingly complex models, and in order to integrate new technologies into survey protocols (Internet, GPS…). Combining different media is an obvious low-cost way of improving data quality as it increases the overall response rate. But the question of the comparability of data over time and between different survey modes remains unresolved. This paper makes a comparative analysis between the travel behaviours of web-based survey respondents and respondents to a face-to-face interview. The data were obtained from the 2006 Lyon conurbation household travel survey. Our analysis shows that the Internet respondents reported fewer trips per day than the face-to-face respondents (3.00 vs. 4.04 daily trips), and that the differences between the two groups varied according to the travel mode and trip purpose. While part of this difference can be explained by socioeconomic disparities (the Internet respondents had a specific profile) we cannot exclude the possibility of under-reporting due to the web medium.

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Notes

  1. Centre d’Etudes sur les Réseaux, les Transports et l’Urbanisme (The Centre for the Study of Networks, Transport and Urban Planning).

  2. Both for face-to-face and web-based surveys we use the AAPOR (2011) definition of response rate considering that all addresses were eligible for face-to-face survey (as a result of the method to build the data base for the survey) and that all addresses used for the web-based survey were also eligible including those household without internet connection at home or at work. For face-to-face information on non-complete questionnaire is not available. We have therefore used the AAPOR “minimum response rate”.

  3. The household head counts as one consumption unit, other members of the household aged 14 and over account for 0.5 consumption units, and the other household members of less than 14 years of age count as 0.3 consumption units.

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  1. Laboratoire de Sciences Actuarielle et Financière, Université Lyon 1—Article rédigé au Laboratoire d’Économie des Transports, Lyon, France

    Caroline Bayart

  2. Laboratoire d’Economie des Transport, Université de Lyon (ENTPE, CNRS, Université Lumière Lyon), rue Maurice Audin, 69518, Vaulx en Velin Cedex, France

    Patrick Bonnel

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Bayart, C., Bonnel, P. Combining web and face-to-face in travel surveys: comparability challenges?. Transportation 39, 1147–1171 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-012-9393-x

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