Return to Transportation Consumer Research  Transportation Consumer Research    Project Summary :: 1  2  3  4  5  6   Background Resource Systems Group conducted and administered a household travel diary survey for the Florida Department of Transportation to gather information about the travel patterns of Tampa Bay residents for use in developing the four county Tampa Bay Regional Planning Model. An initial mailing of 5000 travel diaries was made; 2000 of which contained a short stated preference mode choice exercise. Project Scope The survey was administered using an established and systematic method for maximizing response rate. The method emphasizes multiple contacts and was designed to: •  Minimize the cost for responding by designing a survey that is easy to complete and provide a toll-free telephone number for assistance. •  Maximize the reward for responding by providing respondents with an opportunity to include comments on transportation issues of importance to them. •  Establish trust that those rewards will be delivered by explaining the importance of their responses and how the results will be used. Project Results Using this method a net response rate of almost 40% was achieved. The survey results include data on both trip-making and demographic characteristics of households in the region. From these data, the number of trips, or trip generation rate, for each type of trip was calculated by housing type, number of household members, and number of vehicles for several different life stages (i.e., working household with children, retired, etc.). The stated preference mode choice data were used to estimate coefficients of a mode choice model. These results were used to calibrate and validate the Tampa Regional Travel Forecasting Model.