Stated willingness to participate in travel surveys: a cross-country and cross-methods comparison

Travel surveys are the primary source of data that feed into the analysis and modeling of travel behaviour. Numerous studies have found that the survey method, be it pen and paper, online, interview, smartphone app, or GPS, impacts participation, diligence and accuracy of reporting. In turn, this can lead to bias both in terms of the socio-demographic mix of respondents, and under/mis-reporting of trip information. To date, there is limited understanding of if/how preferences for particular travel survey methods vary across countries. In 2014, a survey of 17,510 adults from 24 countries was undertaken by an internationally-renowned market research firm to assess stated preferences for different travel survey methods. Following an assessment of how preferences vary by country and method, the current paper focuses on responses from five of these countries with long-standing household travel surveys—Australia, USA, France, Germany, and Japan. Results suggest that for a given survey method, willingness to participate in travel surveys varies across countries and within each group of respondents (classified by their socio-demographic characteristics). Australians tend to indicate a higher willingness to participate across the different survey methods compared to their counterparts, particularly from Japan. In terms of socio-demographic characteristics, younger respondents indicate a greater willingness to engage in travel surveys regardless of the method, while females are more likely to prefer diary-based methods than mobile-based methods. Respondents also appear to trade-off effort in completing travel surveys using traditional methods against privacy concerns with mobile-based methods. Results suggest that that there is no ‘one size fits all’ methodology for travel surveys, with designers needing to carefully consider both socio-demographic and cultural differences.