Travel surveys provide information on travel behavior characteristics that are essential for travel demand modeling and transportation planning in general.

On January 9-10, 2008 NYMTC and UTRC held a workshop on Contemporary Issues in Household Travel Survey Design and Management. This workshop included speakers from Washington D.C., Portland, New York, Atlanta, and Seattle. As NYMTC prepares for the upcoming Regional Household Travel Survey, the workshop helped to inform NYMTC members and partners of the key issues in household travel surveys.
The GPS Pilot Project examines whether incorporating Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technologies into the upcoming NYMTC Household Travel Survey efforts will provide a cost-effective person-based strategy for collecting both passive and active travel behavior data.
The 1997/1998 Regional Travel Household Interview Survey (RT-HIS) (updated using 2000 Census information) was conducted by NYMTC to record daily travel activities in the New York Metropolitan Area. The purpose of the survey was to gather information suitable for gaining an in-depth understanding of the travel behavior of households including individuals within households, their travel activities, demographics and other factors that affect travel in the New York Metropolitan Area. The survey provides estimates for a range of travel measures used in transportation planning analysis for the NYMTC region and it was used for the development of NYMTC’s Best Practice Model.
The National Household Travel Survey (NHTS formerly NPTS), is the nation’s inventory of daily and long-distance travel. The NHTS provides vital data on American passenger travel and is used to examine the relationship between social demographic change, land development patterns, and transportation. The 2001 NHTS collected information similar to surveys conducted in 1969, 1977, 1983, 1990, and 1995 and sampled approximately 66,000 households across the country. 13,423 households were included from New York State to enhance the national survey and provide a detailed summarization of the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). For more information on the 1995 and 2001 New York State add-on visit NYSDOT | National Household Travel Survey.
The Census Transportation Planning Package 2000 (CTPP 2000) provides organizations with accurate and comprehensive data to make informed decisions. CTPP contains tabulations of households, individuals, and employment and worker data and summarizes the information by place of residence, by place of work, and for worker-flows between home and work. Transportation planners use CTPP data to: Evaluate existing conditions, Develop or update travel demand models, and Analyze demographic and travel trends.
Other travel survey related sites include: TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD: ABJ40 Travel Survey Methods Committee Metropolitan Travel Survey Archive Travel Model Improvement Program (TMIP) Archives