Metropolitan Travel Behavior Survey Series

The New York, New Jersey, Connecticut Regional Travel - Household Interview Survey (RT-HIS), 1997-1998, was sponsored by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) and the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA). The survey was conducted from February 1997 through May 1998, and relied on the willingness of area residents to complete diary records of their daily travel over a designated 24-hour period. Random recruitment of households was conducted by a telephone recruitment interview in which respondents were informed of the survey, its purpose, and the obligation of respondents to complete travel diaries. Data on households and household members were also collected during the recruitment interview. Participating households were assigned a specific travel day, which typically occurred 10 days after recruitment; each household member was asked to record travel information in a travel diary for the specified 24-hour period. Immediately after the assigned date, households were contacted by telephone to retrieve the diary information. In total, 14,441 households were recruited to participate in the study. Of these, 11,264 households completed travel diaries. Travel information was retrieved from all household members regardless of age, and has been compiled into five public-use data files:

1. The Household file includes demographic information pertaining to the household, such as county of residence, household size, dwelling type, home ownership status, tenure, dominant language, telephone ownership, ethnicity, and income;
2. The Person file contains demographic information pertaining to individual household members, including age, gender, relationship, employment status, student status, disability status, and licensed driver status;
3. The Vehicle file features information about all household vehicles, including the number of vehicles, vehicle year, vehicle type, and whether each vehicle is owned or leased;
4. The Trip file contains all travel day data, including information on places visited, arrival and departure times, activities at each destination, travel mode, parking costs, and detailed transit information;
5. The Location file includes information about each location visited by household members, such as location type, census tracts, and geocoding status data.

Additionally, data producers developed Household, Person, and Trip analysis data files; these files comprise parts 6 through 8, and contain the RT-HIS weight variables.