Public participation and consultation are important features of Local Area Traffic Management Studies and increasingly Local Government is requiring more emphasis to be given to this aspect. Traditional methods of involving the local community through questionnaires and public meetings are of limited value due to the normally low return rate and the bias arising from the fact that, in the main, only residents with concerns for current conditions will accept the invitation to participate. In the Dorking Road Study, completed for the Box Hill City Council, a trip diary survey was used to establish important local trip generation and distribution characteristics. The survey achieved a relatively high rate of relatively high rate of return (approximately 40 per cent) and is considered to have been a highly cost-effective method of acquiring local travel data and broadening local community involvement (A).
Abstract