National Household Travel Survey

National Household Travel Survey
Name	National Household Travel Survey
Country	United States
Administered by	Bureau of Transportation Statistics
First conducted	1969
Frequency	periodic
Sample size	variable
Topics	travel behavior, trip characteristics, vehicle use

Contents

National Household Travel Survey The National Household Travel Survey is a U.S. household travel survey program that collects data on daily travel, trip purpose, mode choice, vehicle miles traveled, and demographic correlates. It supports transportation planning, urban planning, environmental analysis, public policy evaluation, and infrastructure investment decisions used by agencies such as the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Federal Highway Administration, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, and metropolitan planning organizations like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (San Francisco Bay Area). Results inform analyses for projects associated with the Interstate Highway System, Federal Transit Administration, Amtrak, and regional transit operators including New York City Transit, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Chicago Transit Authority.

Overview

The survey gathers person-level and household-level travel diaries, vehicle characteristics, and socio-demographic data to estimate trip rates, mode shares, and travel distances for planning by entities such as the Federal Highway Administration, State of California Department of Transportation, Texas Department of Transportation, and metropolitan planning organizations like the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Data output supports modeling in tools developed by institutions including the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Transportation Research Board, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley, and Georgia Institute of Technology. Users include research centers like the Pew Charitable Trusts, Rand Corporation, Brookings Institution, Urban Institute, and consultancies such as AECOM, Parsons Corporation, and WSP Global.

Originating with surveys in 1969 and 1977, later waves in 1983, 1990, 1995, 2001, 2009, 2017, and others were administered by federal entities and contractors including the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Census Bureau, and contractors like Westat, RTI International, and Tetra Tech. Legislative and programmatic context includes statutes and guidance from the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, and the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. Funding and oversight involve committees in the United States Congress, stakeholders such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and advisory input from professional societies like the Institute of Transportation Engineers and American Planning Association.

Sampling designs combine address-based sampling, random-digit dialing, and mail-back travel diaries with in-person follow-ups; contractors coordinate with the U.S. Postal Service and use frame data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the American Community Survey. Data collection methods have incorporated telephone interviewing, web-based surveys, GPS-based travel logging with devices from vendors used by Federal Highway Administration demonstrations, and smartphone apps similar to products reviewed by institutions like National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Weighting and variance estimation apply techniques described in publications by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Transportation Research Board, and statistical authorities such as the American Statistical Association. Documentation references coding schemes consistent with standards from the North American Industry Classification System when linking to occupational data at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Analyses reveal trends in vehicle miles traveled, commute patterns, and mode shifts relevant to metropolitan regions like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix. Results have been cited in studies about telecommuting linked to firms like IBM and Microsoft, transit ridership analyses affecting agencies such as Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York), highway congestion studies informing projects on the Interstate 95 corridor, and emissions modeling used by the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board. Research citing survey waves appears in journals and reports from Transportation Research Part A, Journal of Transport Geography, Energy Policy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and think tanks like Resources for the Future.

Public-use microdata files and summary tables are distributed for download and use by academics at institutions such as Harvard University, Stanford University, Princeton University, and international organizations like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Software tools and code examples created by groups including Pandas (software), R Project for Statistical Computing, ArcGIS, QGIS, and modelers at RAND Corporation and MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics facilitate analysis. Transportation agencies such as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (San Francisco Bay Area), Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority use findings to support grant applications to programs administered by the Federal Transit Administration and Federal Highway Administration.

Critiques raised by academics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley, Northwestern University, and policy analysts at the Brookings Institution focus on response rates, recall bias, undercounting of nonmotorized trips in places like Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis, and limitations for capturing freight interactions studied by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. Other concerns relate to sample sizes for small areas used by regional bodies such as the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and the San Diego Association of Governments, and comparability over time given methodological changes overseen by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and contractors like Westat. Ongoing methodological research by the Transportation Research Board and evaluations from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine seek to address biases through mixed-mode data collection and GPS augmentation.