The National Travel Survey (NTS) provides up-to-date and regular information about personal travel within Great Britain and monitors trends in travel behaviour. The Ministry of Transport commissioned the first NTS in 1965/1966, and it was repeated on an ad-hoc basis in 1972/1973, 1975/1976, 1978/1979 and 1985/1986. In July 1988, the NTS became a continuous survey (i.e. fieldwork was conducted on a monthly basis) with an annual set sample size of 5,040 addresses which had increased to 5,796 by 2001. In 2002 the annual set sample size increased to 15,048 addresses. Since January 2002, the Department for Transport (DfT) has commissioned NatCen Social Research (NatCen), an independent social research institute, as the contractor for the NTS. NatCen is responsible for questionnaire development, sample selection, data collection and editing, data file production and building the database. The DfT is responsible for data analysis, publication and archiving. This report describes the methodology for sample design, fieldwork procedures, data preparation and data provision for the 2014 NTS. During 2011, DfT undertook a consultation exercise to review the methodology and content of the NTS for 2013 onwards. The review covered sample coverage, data collection methodology, interview question content and items recorded as part of the travel record. Full details of the review can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/future-developments-for-the-…. As a result of the review, in 2013 a number of items were removed from the interview questionnaire and the travel record. In addition, the sample was restricted to cover England only with Scotland and Wales no longer included. The sample size for England remained at its previous level, meaning that the overall sample size for the survey was reduced. (Author/publisher)
Abstract