Getting the Most Out of a Transit Onboard Survey: Results from Madison

Transit onboard surveys are important tools to collect data on transit rider characteristics and travel patterns. Most transit surveys are well implemented and collect useful data. However, some surveys fail to generate adequate response rates and are expanded at aggregate levels – that often makes these data unreliable for policy decisions. This paper presents a case study from Madison, Wisconsin where a series of improvements were made to different stages of the onboard survey process to collect good quality data. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: first, it discusses improvements made to the survey questionnaire and sampling frames in Madison; second, it describes various data collected during the survey process; and finally, it describes the disaggregate iterative survey expansion procedure that was implemented and highlights some key results from the expansion process. This paper demonstrates that by making minor incremental improvements to commonly administered transit onboard surveys, it is possible to develop data that are more detailed and better suited for policy testing.