For this survey, “travel” means going from one place to another for any reason. “Activities” are the things you do once you’ve arrived. These could be going to work or to shop, visiting a neighbor or even going for a walk.

If we can understand how you arrange your activities and how you make your travel plans, we can better plan needed transportation improvements to make it easier for you to go about your day and accomplish what you’ve set out to do.

We have learned that if people do not use a log to record their travel and activities, they forget key details about what they’ve done and the places they’ve been.

It is really important that all trips, even short stops or those in the evening, and all activities no matter how routine are captured in the travel and activity survey
.

A stop for coffee or to get gas on the way to work is part of what’s called a “trip chain" – which is an important part of people’s everyday travel. It affects where you travel, why you travel, when you travel, and how much you travel. To obtain an accurate snapshot of travel patterns, we need to know how and when residents chain their trips.

Detailed location information is an important part of analyzing travel patterns. Providing detailed information such as the bus stop/train station or street address, town, zip code, cross street and nearby landmark will enable us to see which streets, highways and transit services are being used.

Each household member is asked to record travel and activities for a specific time period. Some households will be asked about their travel and activities for a 24-hour period, others for a 48-hour period. Each household member is asked to report what they do during this specific time period, even if they feel that this day is not "normal" for them (for example, they might be ill or on vacation). By having every household report all travel and activities for the specific travel period assigned to their household, we will obtain a good average across all the travel days.