Household Travel Survey Helps Determine Transportation Needs

Are you seeing more cars on the road? Do you spend more time at stoplights? Local governments in the metropolitan Charlotte area, in association with the departments of transportation in North Carolina and South Carolina, are conducting a household travel survey to better understand how and why people in our region travel. The results will be used to plan transportation improvements in the region.

Over the next few months, residents of Mecklenburg County, Gaston County, Union County, Cabarrus County, Iredell County, Rowan County, Cleveland County, Lincoln County, and Stanly County in North Carolina and residents of York County and Lancaster County in South Carolina will be contacted by phone to participate in the regional household travel survey. ETC Institute, the firm contracted to conduct the survey, will recruit a total of 4,000 households to participate in the survey. All participants will be selected at random.

Households participating in the survey will have each household member keep a travel diary for one day. They will record the destination address, travel time, mode of travel, and vehicle occupancy for their travels throughout the day. Parents will be asked to keep the travel diary for younger children. The results of the household travel diaries will be used to map the travel patterns of our region, providing a better understanding of how, when and where people travel. All information collected is confidential and individual responses will not be released.

For more information about the survey, go to www.metrolinasurvey.org.