A pilot survey of a panel approach to evaluating TravelSmart initiatives

An unusual TravelSmart intervention is being undertaken in South Australia, in which the intervention will take place over a period of about two years, using a variety of techniques to gain increasing acceptance from the population over that time. This paper describes the evaluation of the travel impacts of this initiative. Two new approaches are being undertaken to evaluate the travel impacts - an odometer panel and a GPS panel. The odometer panel will consist of about 1000 households that will be asked to provide the odometer readings from all cars used by the household every 4 months for a period of 2 1/2 years. The GPS panel will consist of about 200 households that will be asked to use wearable GPS devices for one week once a year for a period lasting just over 2 years (thus, participants will use the GPS devices three times). Panel attrition is expected from both panels, and participants lost through attrition will be replaced at each wave of each panel. This paper describes a pilot survey for both the odometer and GPS surveys, conducted in the period from March to August, 2005. The paper describes the methods used to recruit households, the data collected at recruitment, the procedures used to obtain odometer readings and to have participants use the GPS devices, and summarises the results from the pilot survey. The response rates to recruitment and completion of the panel tasks are noted for both panels.