A persistent problem that has beset personal travel surveys since their inception is the inability of people to provide good geographic information about their origins and destinations, and also to provide accurate, objective data about the times and distances of their trips. Most people know the address of their home. This paper discusses the use of a passive global positioning system (GPS) to collect data about trip origins and destinations. The idea of passive GPS is to remove the personal data assistant (PDA), and to reduce or eliminate any respondent intervention. In a proof-of-concept experiment, using off-the-shelf GPS equipment, the PDA was eliminated and the respondent was required only to turn on the GPS device before beginning to travel. Collection of the remaining desired data was achieved through a prompted recall survey. Prompted recall uses the information about the time and location of the travel as a prompt to help respondents recall what they did.
Abstract