23: Non-Standard, Non-Household Surveys

Most transport planning uses the household as the unit for planning. Hence the common assumption is made that the household survey is an essential, if not the only, method of collecting travel information. Even in the context of travel modelling this assumption is obviously incorrect, because many other sources of data are also used. These other sources (e.g., land use information, transport service and infrastructure information) provide information that the household survey cannot supply.

Besides this need for non-household surveys, conducting household surveys is becoming more and more difficult in the face of increasing financial costs and increasing refusal by sampled respondents to participate in the surveys. As such, non-household survey techniques are being sought to reduce these problems, while still obtaining sufficiently adequate and accurate data to deliver transport services to the travelling public.