Use of Convenience Sampling: Benefits and Challenges from the Phoenix, Arizona, Area Household Travel Survey

Household travel surveys (HTS) provide crucial information for years of transportation planning and modeling. Each HTS faces three perennial challenges: representing of all relevant segments of the population, encouraging households to start and complete the survey, and ensuring data collected is of a quality suitable for sophisticated modeling. The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) performed a HTS which employed innovative solutions to these problems by using an app with passive recording, sampling using both address-based and convenience sampling, and partnering with organizations to help reach important demographics. The MAG HTS started with the standard approach of sending letters to an address-based sample of households in the region. After receiving only a minimal response, the survey team elected to move to a convenience sample. A convenience sample is composed of households recruited from the general population of the region, rather than selected randomly based on a set sampling plan. The team expanded communication by reaching out through civic organizations and other interfaces connected with the population to promote the survey and encourage participation. In addition, other methodologies including paid advertisement and in-person interceptor recruitment was tested to recruit households into the survey.The resulting data show a robust sample with a broad mix of households. Many groups considered hard-to-reach - particularly large households with complex travel patterns and college students who choose a variety of transportation modes – were collected in abundance, The execution of the expanded technique resulted in a sample with demographic shares close to those of the population.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ40 Standing Committee on Travel Survey Methods.
• Authors:
  • Selby, Brent
  • Copperman, Rachel
  • DeBoer, Kathryn
  • Brown, Edward
  • Komanduri, Anurag
  • Livshits, Vladimir
  • Kuppam, Arun
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 17p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Methodology; Sampling; Travel surveys
• Identifier Terms: Maricopa Association of Governments
• Geographic Terms: Phoenix (Arizona)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Society; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01664098
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-04913
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 23 2018 10:32AM