Methods for improving response rates and data quality in long-distance travel diaries

European transport policy is rapidly expanding its scope. The TransEuropean Networks especially require data of a uniform and high quality across Europe. While many databases can be built up from existing sources, it will be virtually impossible to do so for a European travel behaviour database. This is due to the different approaches taken across Europe to the collection of travel behaviour data. The project Methods for European Surveys of Travel Behaviour (MEST) aims to develop a benchmark survey of long-distance travel behaviour, which can be applied across Europe with questions understood in all member states of the European Union, the prerequisite to the cost-efficient collection of data. A series of three waves of pilot surveys in various countries is the main tool to achieve this aim. For the first time in the transport literature, the experiments undertaken here varied the workload of the respondent by varying: (1) the number of items to be reported about any long-distance journey; (2) the duration of the survey period; (3) the temporal orientation of the survey; (4) the survey instruments (CATI vs. self-completion mail back); (5) the layout of the written instrument (one page for each part of the journey vs. one column); and (6) the survey unit (trips vs. stages). For the covering abstract, see IRRD E101143.