Measuring transportation at a human scale: An intercept survey approach to capture pedestrian activity

Abstract

Pedestrian travel data are critical for measuring and analyzing sustainable transportation systems. However, traditional household travel surveys and analysis methods often ignore secondary modes, such as walking from a street parking space to a store entrance or walking from a bus stop to home. New data collection and analysis techniques are needed, especially in areas where walking is common. This paper describes an intercept survey methodology used to measure retail pharmacy customer travel to, from, and within 20 shopping districts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of the 1003 respondents, 959 (96 percent) reported all modes of travel used from leaving home until returning home, including secondary modes. Walking was the primary travel mode on 21 percent of respondent tours, but an analysis of secondary modes found that 52 percent of tours included some walking. Pedestrian travel was particularly common within shopping districts, accounting for 65 percent of all trips within 804 meters (0.5 miles) of survey stores. Detailed walking path data from the survey showed that respondents in denser, more mixed-use shopping districts tended to walk along the main commercial street as well as other streets connecting to the core shopping area, while respondent pedestrian movements in automobile-oriented shopping districts tended to be contained within specific shopping complexes. a rjschnei@uwm.edu

Improving Trip Generation Methods for Livable Communities

“…Better data on trip length distribution and trip origins and subsequent destinations can help understand the relationships between the market area of an establishment, the distances traveled by visitors, and their modes, all of which have a strong relationship with socioeconomics. As the calls for more and better establishment-level data increase Schneider, 2013;Dock et al, 2015), including socioeconomic and -demographic information about the transportation system users, it is critical to include these data to increase our understanding of trip generation. Table B19013; 2 2010 Census, Summary File 1 (SF1), Table P2; 3 2013 ACS, 5-year summary, Table B17010; 4 2010 Census, SF1, Table H13; 5 2013 ACS, 5-year summary, Table B99051; 6 2010 ACS, 5-year summary, Table B25044 4…”

“…In a 2013 study, Schneider (2013) surveyed visitors to shopping districts in suburban and urban areas and found that 65% of trips between land uses in all shopping districts were walking trips, but in urban centers, approximately 96% of trips between land uses were walking trips. Furthermore, we have only begun to understand the ways in which trips are captured within mixed-use buildings (e.g., Walters, Bochner, & Ewing, 2013), but the available methods have not been adequately tested with a range of contexts.…”

“…Despite these improvements in data and methods, there has been less attention placed on identifying the conditions of the immediate environment around and including a site that can influence trip generation (Schneider, 2013;Larco, 2015). Many mitigations to anticipated transportation issues attributed to growth are proposed during the development process, often during a transportation impact analysis.…”

Modelling Flyover Induced Travel Demand in Dhaka, Bangladesh

“…The intercept survey is a widely accepted data collection method used by researchers throughout the world (Behrens and Schalekamp, 2010;Grov et al, 2007;Kate and Konstadinos, 2009;Schneider, 2013). According to Cripwell et al (2009), an intercept survey is performed by survey staff at a particular location by approaching potential participants when they enter or exit that particular location.…”

“…People who travel from one place to another for their daily purposes by walking cover 1.25km per trip. Average travel speed in Dhaka is 15.2km per hour, which comes down to 10/12km per hour during traffic congestion (Schneider, 2013). Grov et al (2007) Evidence shows that the travel time of buses varies.…”