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Travel Behavior Inventory:  Where, when and how we travel

Did you know that your travel patterns help shape the transportation system of the Twin Cities metro area?

Your daily commute to and from work…your errands around town…vacations and visits to relatives…even bike rides and walks. All of these trips figure into the “travel demand” in the region, which affects the need for new highways and transit facilities.

That’s why the Metropolitan Council is conducting its seventh regional Travel Behavior Inventory (TBI), starting in the fall of 2010 and continuing into the spring of 2012. 

The TBI is a battery of surveys that examine where people travel, as well as when, why and how. Conducted roughly every 10 years since 1949, the TBI is the most comprehensive source of travel data in the region.

The surveys will be used to provide policymakers and researchers the most current data about travel in the region.  It will also be used to develop a major update to the region’s travel demand forecasting models, which are used to forecast traffic and transit ridership for all major projects.

Data from the 1990 and 2000 TBIs was instrumental in planning and justifying every major transportation project built in the region in the past decade.

While surveys of this type are conducted every 10 years, each survey gives us the chance to use new technology and survey methods to do a more accurate and more efficient job of capturing travel patterns. 

The most visible new feature of this decade’s survey will be the introduction of GPS data collection to the household interview survey.  Behind the scenes, web-based and computer-aided phone retrieval interviews and quick mapping of survey data will help ensure that every survey gets fully used.

If you are asked to participate, please do so. More households being willing to participate means higher quality data, and lowers the cost of conducting the survey.