Passport Demand Phase II Supporting statement (Final)

Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission

U.S. Passport Demand Study Phase II

OMB No. 1405-XXXX, SV-2007-0021

A. Justification

1. The U.S. border management community is tasked with the protection of the U.S. and its territories from foreign threats, the enforcement of immigration and customs laws, and the promotion of economic prosperity for the U.S. and its allies. The Department of State (DoS) plays a vital role in this community through its Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Passport Services Office (CA/PPT). CA/PPT is primarily responsible for issuing U.S. passports to any U.S. citizen who applies and meets all requirements.

Recent events within the U.S. have placed added emphasis within the border management community on its responsibility to protect the country and its territories from threats to national security. Given that the number of crossings into the U.S., currently estimated at more than 500 million per year, is expected to increase dramatically in the future, various Government agencies are intensifying their efforts to better protect the more than 300 air, land and sea ports of entry (POE) into the country.

Section 7209 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA), enacted on December 17, 2004, requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to develop expeditiously, and implement by January 1, 2008, a plan to require U.S. citizens and certain other categories of individuals to present a passport or other sufficient documentation that denotes identity and citizenship when entering the U.S.

This law would have the most significant effect on travel to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, which are the most common destinations for U.S. citizens that currently do not require a passport for entry. The policy change has already had significant impacts on the passport demand within the U.S., causing demand to exceed the current annual production capabilities of CA/PPT.

Land border crossings represent the largest number of U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (U.S. VISIT) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspections; therefore, this population may have the greatest impact on passport demand. U.S. VISIT and CBP statistics from FY 2001 estimate that U.S. citizens represent 39 million crossings along the northern border and 93 million crossings along the southern border. There is no established method for determining the unique number of land crossings, passport possession or passport demand of land travelers.

To address the issue, DoS conducted an initial passport demand study in 2005. The methodology for this survey involved face-to-face interviews at 14 land border crossings on the Canadian and Mexican borders. The results of this survey was useful in establishing initial demand trends using a static snapshot of travel and passport application behavior, and CA/PPT used the data to initiate a program of resource upgrades for meeting demand.

Since February 2007, it has become apparent that passport demand behavior among the land border traveling population has changed dramatically, and forecasts created from the 2005 study no longer prove valid. Receipts have come in at higher than expected levels this year, so that pending passport application work has increased three-fold since January 2007 and the average passport processing time lengthened from six weeks in December 2006, to ten to twelve weeks today.

This updated survey will address all elements of CA/PPT’s data needs, and will allow CA/PPT to more accurately create a 2008 budget request and determine the required resource capacity increases. If no survey is conducted, CA/PPT will not be able to make informed decisions regarding Department resources. Failure to prepare for this demand could result in further delays in passport issuance and severely affect CA/PPT’s ability to meet the public demand for passports.

2. The purpose of this full probability Random-Digit-Dial (RDD) telephone survey of a representative sample of U.S. households selected from areas with the largest numbers of land border crossers, is to establish an accurate estimate of U.S. nationals who will require a new passport for cross-border travel (land travel between Mexico and the U.S. as well as Canada and the U.S.) over the next several years, and especially within the next six to twelve months.

CA/PPT is faced with the challenge of balancing the level of precision required in any demand estimate with the time and resources that will be required to achieve that level of precision. CA/PPT developed and reviewed several alternative primary data collection alternatives for the purpose of planning future production capacity and it determined that primary data collection is the most reliable to meet their needs. The survey will be conducted with a 95% confidence level that assumes the error of the estimate will be within approximately 2% of the true number of new passports needed. The survey will meet data needs with enough precision to plan for appropriate staffing and budget for the coming years, relative to the impending Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) requirements for land border crossings, which could take effect as early as January 1, 2008.

3. All interviews will be conducted using a state-of-the-art Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system. This system allows interviewers to enter responses directly into a computer, which instantaneously feeds the information from each station to a mainframe computer. The CATI system is programmed to automatically control branching and skipping within the interview (where a respondent receives certain questions based on responses to earlier questions).

An RDD telephone sample will be administered using an advanced proprietary sample management system that automatically keeps track of the frequency and timing of calls to allow for the most efficient sample management possible. Autodialers will be utilized to speed dial telephone numbers. This system does not wait for a “live” voice on the line that can leave a blank time before an interviewer addresses the potential respondent, as occurs in similar systems. Rather, in this system, an interviewer is on the line as soon as a “ring” is detected, thus making dialing of telephone numbers more efficient, and improving the likelihood that the respondent will accept the call.

DoS and Gallup endeavor to provide an electronic option for data collections and will investigate the use of information technologies for future and ongoing demand studies to allow respondents to directly input their responses. However, the principal method of information collection will be one-on-one telephone interviews with the interviewer directly entering the data into the computer to provide for digital end-to-end business processing from that point.

4. This collection will not duplicate any other information collection. DoS has attempted to establish an accurate demand figure by an extensive review of all known statistical border management databases. There is currently no method for determining the unique number of land crossings, passport possession or passport demand of land travelers other than asking the potential travelers who are U.S. citizens about their border crossing behavior or intentions and whether they possess valid passports. Because of the lack of existing data, CA/PPT undertook an initial survey in July 2005. While that study was useful at that time for CA/PPT’s early planning needs, the results are now dated and have proven to be unreliable estimates for current and future demand. In addition to the dated nature of the study, the previous study also was undertaken with a different methodology from this proposed study in that it used in-person interviews with a sample of people crossing back into the U.S. at a handful of land border crossings. This previous survey collected only information from past land border crossers, did not include any future projected crossings, and only included respondents who actually made land crossings during a 3-day period in mid-July of 2005. CA/PPT was also unable to obtain approval to survey from the private owners of two of the largest Canadian land POE: the Detroit Ambassador Bridge and Detroit Tunnel, because there existed no appropriate staging area to conduct the survey and the owners wanted to avoid slowing traffic across the border.

The proposed study will improve on the prior study in several ways:

• Estimating passport demand based on a representative sample of existing and prospective future land border crossers, selected from areas with the largest numbers of land border crossers, rather than basing estimates only on responses from individuals who actually made land crossings during a 3-day period:

• Avoiding the prospect of significant bias in the 2005 study from the refusal to participate by the private owners of two of the largest Canadian land POE in Michigan with very high crossing volumes;

• Conducting a telephone survey with an approximate duration of 10 minutes (compared to 1.5 minutes for the 2005 study) that will permit collecting more complete and reliable information on:

  • Past and likely future border crossing intentions of a sample of households in areas with the largest numbers of land border crossers, and

  • The likely timing of passport applications and renewals for all U.S. citizen members of sampled households;

• Including survey questions about demand for new passports, passport renewals, and Passport Cards, which are planned for use to re-enter the U.S. under the terms of the WHTI;

• Using a full probability RDD sample design that will support accurate statistical weighting and legitimate calculations of sampling variances and margins of error for all survey estimates; and

• Collecting data from sufficiently large samples of households located in areas with the largest numbers of land border crossers to support estimates of regional and other sub-national estimates of passport demand.

5. Not applicable. The collection of information does not involve small businesses or other small entities.

6. Survey data is required in order to establish an accurate estimate of the number of U.S. citizens who will be seeking a passport as a consequence of WHTI. Without such information, CA/PPT will not be able to make duly informed decisions on hiring and training staff to build up other resources and infrastructure to handle the increased demand for passports. If the survey is not conducted, CA/PPT will not have reliable information informing resource-related decisions, which could result in underestimating, and resultant further delayed passport issuance, adverse customer service or, alternatively, result in excessive resource allocation, which would waste taxpayer money and Department resources.

7. Not applicable. This collection of information is a voluntary survey. Respondents will be informed that the survey is not mandatory, that the information is confidential, and that they may decline to participate. (Names, addresses, and other personal identification information will not be collected.)

8. A notice for emergency OMB review has been sent to the Federal Register for publication, in accordance with 5 C.F.R. § 1320.13.

9. Not applicable. This information collection does not provide any payment or gift to respondents.

10. The Gallup Organization will collect all of the data. Respondents will be told at the onset of the interview that the data will be strictly confidential and that identifying information will not be released outside of the organization. This notice will be repeated to the respondent prior to asking respondents for any demographic information. All interviewers will sign statements of confidentiality in which they promise not to reveal the results of any interview.

As an additional safeguard, the names of the respondents are not collected during the course of the interview, and the telephone numbers are separated from the survey data prior to analysis. All questionnaires, other records, and database entries will be only identified by case identification numbers. These procedures ensure that data on individual respondents cannot be traced to the sources.

The Gallup Organization claims that in nearly 70 years of existence, it has never been involved in an instance of breach of confidentiality. A copy of Gallup’s “Respondent Privacy and Confidentiality Protections” is attached at the end of this document.

11. Not applicable. The collection of information does not ask questions of a sensitive nature.

12. The survey will be conducted with a 95% confidence level that assumes the error of the estimate will be within approximately 2% of the true number of new passports needed over the next several years. To achieve this level of confidence, statistically we will need about 4,000 respondent households. Each survey is estimated to be no more than 10 minutes in length including any screening for qualification. Based on the time to conduct an interview and the total number of interviews (4,000) the total hourly burden time for the responding public to the complete survey is estimated to be 667 hours.

13. Not applicable. There is no cost burden to respondents associated with this collection.

14. The estimated cost to the Federal Government is $742,682. A breakdown of the estimated cost and time to implement the survey can be found below.

Item	Description	Cost
1	Draft Survey Questionnaire	$ 47,122
2	OMB Submission Package	$ 36,678
3	Final Survey Questionnaire (English and Spanish)	$ 36,217
4	Initial Data Set Following Survey Completion	$ 475,057
5	Draft Report of Passport Demand Study Results	$ 32,240
6	Final Report of Passport Demand Study Results	$ 32,240
7	Set of Executive Briefings (up to three until 9/1/07)	$ 41,564
8	Set of Executive Briefings (up to three through 12/31/07)	$ 41,564
Total		$ 742,682

Summary of Methodology. Telephone interview conducted with U.S. citizens in a representative sample of U.S. households principally selected from areas with the largest numbers of land border crossers, including 2,000 interviews to be completed for likely Canadian land border crossers and 2,000 interviews completed for likely Mexican land border crossers. These completed interviews will include residents of “high density” areas, or those within a close proximity to land border crossings, as well as some “low density” areas, captured by taking a much smaller sample.

Deliverables.

• Survey Questionnaire (English & Spanish)

• OMB Supporting Documents

• Data File

• Draft Report

• Final Report

• Executive Briefing

• Meetings and Briefings

Timeframe Required. Four to six weeks following OMB approval for an initial data set; Three months from the survey start date to complete all reporting and briefings.

Type of Contract: Firm Fixed Price

15. The U.S. Passport Demand Study Phase II is a new information collection.

16. Not applicable. The collection of information will not be published for statistical use. The information collection will be used to establish an accurate estimate of U.S. citizens who plan to apply for a passport for cross-border travel (land travel between Mexico and the U.S. as well as Canada and the U.S.).

17. The U.S. Passport Demand Study Phase II will be a voluntary telephone (verbal) interview, and the respondents will not be required to fill out any form. The Department will make the OMB expiration date available to respondents during the interview process.

18. Not applicable. We are not requesting any exceptions to the certification statement identified in Item 19 "Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions," of OMB Form 83-I.

B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

1. The objective of this quick-response survey is to estimate the number of U.S. citizens who travel to Canada and Mexico by land and who plan to apply for a passport as a result of the change in U.S. law and regulations requiring a passport for entry back into the U.S. Passport demand will be estimated based on a telephone survey of a representative sample of U.S. citizens in households principally selected from areas with the largest numbers of existing and prospective, future land border crossers. The potential respondent universe will consist of all U.S. citizens who live in a household and who have crossed back into the U.S. at the Canadian or Mexican border by land in the last 12 months or plan to cross the border in the next 12 months. Within each such household, one adult U.S. citizen will be randomly selected to complete the survey. The size of this potential universe is not known at this point. However, the 2005 Demand Study results indicated that approximately 120 million land crossings take place each year involving about 25 million U.S. citizens. Available evidence indicates that about 50% of these individuals cross land borders frequently (at least once a year – and in many cases multiple times per month) while the remaining 50% cross land borders much less frequently (less than once per year). Under these assumptions, we estimate the potential universe for this proposed study is about 37.5 million U.S. citizens.

Statistical procedures will be used for sampling and respondent selection. The proposed study will screen for households containing at least one person who is a U.S. citizen and has crossed the border in the last twelve months or plans to cross the border in the next twelve months. As described above, we expect about 37.5 million U.S. citizens to cross the border in a 24-month period. Other U.S. citizens who do not meet these criteria may also plan to apply for passports but these individuals are not considered in-scope for this survey. The estimate of the demand for passports will be solely based on demands from U.S. citizens with past experience or near-future intentions of making land border crossings.

2. The following procedures will be employed for the collection of information.

To implement this design, all households in the U.S. will be stratified into two sampling strata: a high-density stratum and a low-density stratum, where density refers to the proportion of households that contain one or more persons that has crossed the Canadian and/or Mexican borders at a land POE in the last 12 months or plans to do so in the next 12 months. The two strata will be formed as follows: Around each of the POE, we will identify geographic areas (states, cities, counties) that are likely to house relatively large numbers of land border crossers. We expect that most of these areas will fall within a 200-mile radius around a large land POE. The high density stratum will be formed around all POE along each border. In many locations, smaller POE located near high-volume POE will automatically be included within the areas defined by proximity to the larger POE. To improve sampling efficiency, we will evaluate whether the smallest POE along each border should be allocated to the low-density stratum because the numbers of crossings and the populations of the surrounding areas are too small to influence the survey results. We anticipate that focusing on the eight to 10 largest volume POE on each border to generate the high-density stratum will permit us to capture the residences of at least 90 percent of the land border crossers along both borders. Once the high-density stratum is established around the high-volume POE, the remainder of the country will be assigned to the low-density stratum. The target areas will be defined in terms of states/cities/counties or in terms of entities that can be mapped accurately to area codes/exchanges (typically county boundaries). The size of each stratum will be known only after they are constructed. However, it is expected that the high-density stratum will include not more than approximately 30 million households and the low-density stratum will include about 95 million households.

For the purpose of sampling, four domains will be generated as shown below. A total of about 4,000 completed interviews divided across four analytical domains will be completed.

Eastern Western

Segment Segment Total

Canada 1,000 1,000 2,000

Mexico 1,000 1,000 2,000

Total 2,000 2,000 4,000

The Eastern and Western segments will be defined using pragmatic divisions of the land crossing volumes along each of the two borders. As a result, the final distribution of completed interviews may somewhat differ from the equal allocations shown above.

For each of the four domains (Canada/Mexico and Eastern/Western segments), the geographic areas will be stratified into high and low density strata and sufficient sample size will be allocated to each of these areas to produce the required number of completed interviews. We will select RDD samples independently for each stratum. The sample will be obtained using list assisted telephone sampling deign. Assuming a statistical design effect of about 1.25, the number of interviews as presented in the table above will ensure a precision of about + 3.5 percentage points for estimation of a proportion around 50% for each of the analytical domains. However, the exact value of the design effect could be higher thereby reducing the effective sample size. For national estimates based on 4,000 completed interviews, the margin of error is not likely to exceed +3 percentage points and is more likely to be less than + 2 percentage points.

As allocated, the yield of interviews with land border crossers in the low-density stratum will be very small compared to that for the high-density stratum. If the incidence rate for this stratum is extremely low (e.g., less than 5 percent), it may be statistically and operationally optimal to restrict data collection in the low-density stratum and redirect resources to enhancing the response rates and data quality for the high-density stratum.

Data will be collected using a telephone survey of approximately 10 minutes duration. A “five-plus-five” call design (up to five calls to establish contacts with an eligible adult at the sampled household and up to five more calls to complete the interview) will be used to complete about 4,000 interviews over a period of about 4 to 6 weeks.

3. The task of completing about 4,000 surveys for this study must be done in a relatively short period of time (4 to 6 weeks). As a result, it may not be feasible to apply some of the methods (such as advance letters, rigorous refusal conversion techniques etc.) that are known to have a positive impact on the response rates. However, within the time constraint, all possible steps will be taken to help increase the response rate for this study.

All supervisors and interviewers assigned to this study will be chosen using a highly discriminating selection interview explicitly for their communications skills. Moreover, all interviewers assigned to this study will have had recent prior experience conducting CATI surveys of the general public on important issues. This approach will avoid the cost of providing general interviewer training and will permit focusing training strictly on the questionnaire and sampling procedures for this study.

In addition to the impact of training protocols on promoting quality in data collection, a systematic sample of each interviewer’s work will be monitored in real time using unobtrusive technology that permits the monitor both to hear the interview transaction and to view the interviewer’s keystrokes as responses are recorded. The sampling rate for monitoring interviews starts high during the first week of calls and is reduced during the field period (but never stopped) so that a total of 5 to 10 percent of each interviewer’s work is monitored across the entire survey.

After each monitoring session, supervisors will review the interviewer’s performance, not only pointing out any deficiencies and providing specific guidance to ensure that quality goals are met or exceeded, but also recognizing and praising the excellent performance of interviewers. Supervisors will hold debriefing sessions with small groups of the interviewing staff concerning the progress of the data collection effort. These sessions are designed to identify any systematic problems with authorized data collection procedures that may be impeding attainment of study goals, to develop effective solutions to such problems, and to fine tune survey procedures to ensure high levels of respondent cooperation while also promoting high efficiency in all aspects of the field effort.

Efforts will also be made to convert refusals to the extent possible and thereby reduce the effect of non-response. While “hard” refusals (those who swear at the interviewer, ask to be taken off our list, or threaten the interviewer in any way) will not be recontacted, those who were “soft” refusals (indicating they are not interested, don’t do surveys, or prefer not to participate) will receive additional calls for completing the survey.

A draft questionnaire is attached to this submission.

4. Questionnaires and procedures will be tested in several ways. The questionnaire will be internally pre-tested by DoS and contractor personnel for timing, content and clarity. Although the questionnaire is very brief and not expected to present difficulties, a review using cognitive laboratory testing methods (viewing the respondent as they answer questions, follow-up probing questions to ensure understanding as intended of the questions, etc.) involving fewer than ten participants will be undertaken to examine the comprehensibility, structure and order of survey items.

Assuming that OMB approval is received, Gallup proposes a formal pre-test of the survey instrument be conducted with a sample of 50 households in the high-density stratum (25 on each border) to confirm that the screening questions and procedures and all items in the main survey questionnaire are working as intended. Although the pre-test will be designed as a confirmatory procedure, if any issues are uncovered with survey instructions, item wording, or response categories during the process, revisions will be proposed and incorporated into the final survey materials upon receipt of agency approval. In the event that a formal pre-test is not possible given the time constraints, Gallup will conduct the standard 9 pre-test interviews to assess the operation of the questionnaire.

5. The Gallup Organization developed the survey design and will be responsible for collecting, processing and analyzing the data and presenting findings to CA/PPT. The following individuals were consulted in developing the survey design, the sampling plan, and statistical aspect of the study.

Dr. Manas Chattopadhyay Dr. Cheoleon Lee

Chief Statistician Sr. Statistical Analyst

The Gallup Organization The Gallup Organization

901 F Street, NW 901 F Street, NW

Washington, D.C. 20004 Washington, D.C. 20004

202-715-3179 202-715-3127

Dr. Sameer Abraham Calvin Jones, ABD

Partner & Managing Research Director Sr. Statistical & Research Consultant

The Gallup Organization Statistical and Evaluation Research

Government Group 24190 Lenah Woods Place

901 F Street, NW Aldie, VA 20105

Washington, D.C. 20004 703-957-4110

202-715-3180

Dawn Royal, M.A.

Engagement Manager

The Gallup Organization

901 F Street, NW

Washington, D.C.20004

248-936-4152

10