Will it work? Pilot results from first large-scale global positioning system-based household travel survey in the United States

The Greater Cincinnati Household Travel Survey (HTS) is a proof-of-concept study for replacing travel diaries with a large-scale multi-day Global Positioning System (GPS) survey. The objectives are to collect multiple-day data from more than 3,000 households with portable GPS devices and improve existing processing software to provide data that support modeling approaches in Ohio. No diaries are collected for household members younger than 12 years old. A subsample of follow-up prompted recall surveys allow respondents to review GPS interpreted travel information for verification. This paper, with data from the spring 2009 pilot, describes the survey process developed for this HTS. It documents that with an address-based sample frame, advance letters, and Internet and phone recruiting, a significant subsample of cell phone-only households can be recruited and surveyed with GPS; a representative sample of households can be recruited for a GPS-based survey, based on a comparison of pilot sample household characteristics with available Public Use Microdata Samples data; and response rates for difficult-to-reach households such as cell phone-only, lower income, and zero-vehicle households can be improved with a cash incentive ($25). The paper provides principles and describes the prompted recall survey developed to obtain additional data from a subset of respondents beyond the GPS recorded travel for improving imputation software.