BOX 4-A
2001 National
Household Travel Survey (NHTS)
The
2001 NHTS was sponsored by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the
Federal Highway Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Households were asked about all the trips1 they took
on a specific day (daily travel), known as the "travel day," and about trips
from home to a distance of at least 50 miles in the 27 days preceding and
including the travel day, known as the "travel period." Detailed
characteristics were collected for each trip including, among other things, the
mode of transportation, the purpose of the trip, and the distance traveled.
Additionally, households were asked to provide information about their social
and demographic characteristics, including income and vehicle ownership, as
well as the age, sex, education level, and so forth of household members. The
2001 NHTS collected information from 26,000 households nationally between March
2001 and May 2002. NHTS passenger data differ from data presented in section 1,
"Passenger-Miles of Travel." See box 1-A for a discussion of
these differences.
While
many aspects of the survey are consistent across its daily and long-distance
trip components, differences exist. In addition to the period over which the
data were collected, the definition of a trip is also different. Daily travel
(as defined in footnote 1) also counted walking and bicycling trips for
recreation, including walking the dog, where a person starts and ends at the
same address. Thus, daily travel covers trips that do not necessarily originate
from home, such as trips from work to the doctor. Long-distance trips, by
contrast, are defined as trips originating from home and include the return component from the
farthest destination, as well as any overnight stops and stops to change
transportation mode.
Other
minor differences exist between the daily and long-distance components of the
NHTS. For instance, data collected on long-distance trips do not include travel
time and the time of day the trip took place, but do include the location of
overnight stops and access/egress to an airport, train station, bus station, or
boat pier.
1 A trip is defined as traveling from one address to
another, whether it is down the street, across town, or cross country.
|
