EAR Program UMTRI Award IC supporting statement Part B

The Supporting Statement

Part B. Collections of Information Employing Statistical Methods

The following five questions must be answered only if Item 17 on Form OMB 83-I is "Yes." If the information collection involves statistical methods, the OST will request a review and concurrence from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) before sending it to OMB.

1. Describe potential respondent universe and any sampling selection method to be used.

The University will order address-based sample for the four target neighborhoods, draw a random sample of households and mail the advance letter / return postcard to those households. Respondents who are interested in participating will return the postcard. The University will include two screening questions in the advance letter to potential survey participants, including: (1.) Employment or study in an area potentially reachable via transit. (One possible definition: work in the city of Chicago or within three miles of a transit line); and (2.) Travel to the nearest train station or its vicinity. The purpose of the screening is to ensure adequate sample participation by people with certain desired characteristics: travel to work or school sites that could be reached by transit, or to the station area.

The University of Illinois at Chicago Survey Research Laboratory (SRL) is responsible for recruiting the survey sample, approximately 800 total, or 200 in each of four Chicago neighborhoods (Cicero, Pilsen, Evanston and Skokie). The initial recruitment will be by mail with responses by return mail. The University estimate that in order to obtain 800 completed mail surveys, they will need to start with a sample of 7,700 addresses. The University will expect 1,463 respondents to return a postcard, completed with contact information.

Households that indicate an interest in the study, by completing and returning the postcard, will then receive a survey packet, which will include a travel diary and images they will need to have on hand for the telephone interview. They will be instructed to complete their travel diary before the interview, and told that interviewers will start to call them about 2 weeks after they receive the packet in the mail. The University estimates that they will be able to contact 95% of the 1,463 households to ask for the respondent who filled out the postcard and then expect 95% of the households contacted to be cooperative. Of the resulting 1,320 households, the University estimate 95% will be eligible (the other 5% will not speak English or Spanish or will not have an adult aged 18 or older). Of the eligible households, the University anticipates they will be able to contact 92% of them to conduct the survey and that 70% of those contacted with complete the interview. In the end, the University expects 808 completed interviews and a response rate of 10.5%.

Participants will be recruited within a four-week week period (so there could be two weeks between when they are called and when they complete their survey and interview). Filling out the survey would take one day. The follow-up interview will take approximately one hour.

2. Describe procedures for collecting information, including statistical methodology for stratification and sample selection, estimation procedures, degree of accuracy needed, and less than annual periodic data cycles.

The survey will ask respondents about their current travel behavior. This will in the form of a trip diary for a particular day (i.e. trip destination, purpose, time of departure and mode). For some subset of trips, respondents will be asked what they would have done if their primary mode were not available. Options will include switching modes or destinations, or eliminating the trip altogether. The assigned days will be staggered, both to represent a range of conditions and to allow follow-up phone interviewing as soon as possible after the individual’s assigned day. The University will restrict our questions to the adult who is completing the survey (one per household).

A second part of the survey will present trip scenarios to respondents under the altered urban-design conditions and ask them to choose a mode and destinations. They will be asked to review their actual trips for the day and indicate whether any of their modes or destinations would have changed given the proposed physical improvements to the walking, cycling, and transit environments. They will similarly be asked if any trips would have been added or eliminated under the proposed changes. Regardless of whether a respondent indicates that any trip would change under the improved conditions, he or she will be asked to subject one particular trip on the trip diary to analysis under the new conditions. Choice of a trip will be based on a hierarchy that we will establish with work trips at the top, then school trips, then shopping trips. Most of the trips will involve travel outside of the respondent’s neighborhood; while the urban design improvements will be represented for the neighborhood only, respondents will be asked to imagine such improvements all along their route.

A third category of information to be collected by the survey is a set of rating-of-alternatives variables (e.g. how would rate their trip to a transit station regarding convenience, safety, etc.).

The University will target four neighborhoods in the Chicago region: Cicero, Pilsen, Evanston and Skokie. These four neighborhoods represent different land-use and demographic characteristics, to ensure the ability generalize of the research findings to a variety of urban conditions.

3. Describe methods to maximize response rate.

The University will mail a letter to those addresses asking them to participate in the study and offering them a $50 incentive for their cooperation. The letter will be double-sided, English on one side and Spanish on the other, and will contain a return postage paid postcard, which will ask for their name, address, e-mail address, and telephone number if they are interested in enrolling in the study.

4. Describe tests of procedures or methods.

The University is using standard method including pre-testing.

5. Provide name and telephone number of individuals who were consulted on statistical aspects of the IC and who will actually collect and/or analyze the information.

Moira Zeller, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, telephone 312 996 2149 and email [email protected] and Anne Diffenderffer, Research Program Specialist, University of Illinois at Chicago, telephone 312 996 2414 or email [email protected].