Friday, December 20, 2002

Surveys to help ARC develop transportation plans for the future

The Atlanta Regional Commission recently completed important surveying efforts that collected "real-life" data about demographics and travel behaviors that will help form a more complete picture of how citizens in this region get around.

Both the Household Travel Survey and the On-Board Transit Survey will serve as valuable inputs to ARC's travel forecasting models and on-going efforts to develop the 2030 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).

The Household Travel Survey asked respondents from more than 8,000 households in the 13-county air quality non-attainment area (representing more than 21,000 people) to record their travel activity for a two-day period into a diary.

The information included basic travel data such as the number of trips taken, how the trips were taken and why the trips were made. This data also included travel behavior based on information about residential densities (high or low-density neighborhoods) and vehicle ownership. Here are some of the highlights of the survey:

Survey Respondents' Demographic Information

Average household size in the 13-county Atlanta area is 2.64 persons.
24 percent of households have incomes less than $30,000, while 32 percent of households have incomes larger than $75,000.

76 percent of households live in a single-family home.
Those living in higher density areas are nearly twice as likely to move during the next three years than those living in low-density areas.

Characteristics of Respondent's Auto Ownership

Average number of vehicles per household ­ 1.78.
Households in higher density areas have fewer vehicles available than those in low-density areas.
7.4 percent of households do not have a car available, while 60 percent have two or more autos available.
61 percent of household vehicles are automobiles, while 36 percent are either SUVs, vans or pick-up trucks.


Characteristics of Survey Respondents' Trips

Households made 8.36 trips on Day 1 and 7.91 trips on Day 2.
Households in higher density areas made fewer trips (this includes driving, walking, transit, bicycles, etc.) than those in low-density areas. Also, households with annual incomes larger than $75,000 made more trips than those with incomes less than $30,000.
Females make more trips than males.
As expected, households with more workers make more trips than those with fewer workers.

To get a better understanding of the travel patterns of those using transit, the On-Board Transit Survey asked riders of MARTA, Cobb Community Transit (CCT) and the newly-created Clayton and Gwinnett transit systems to fill out a questionnaire.

More than 31,000 questionnaires were completed for both weekday and weekend riders. Here are some of the highlights for this survey:
More than 30 percent of surveyed transit riders live in households with four or more residents.
71 percent of regional transit riders are African-American.
Nearly 60 percent of transit riders live in households making a combined income of less than $30,000.

Nearly 60 percent of both weekday and weekend riders walked to transit, while approximately 10 percent drove.
65 percent of weekday riders (and 69 percent of weekend riders) did not have a car or truck available to make the trip they were taking. Interestingly, 78 percent of MARTA bus riders and 71 percent of CCT riders did not have a car available. More than 40 percent of MARTA rail riders and 51 percent of Clayton and Gwinnett systems' riders did not have a car available.
42 percent of weekday riders (and 47 percent of weekend riders) live in a household that does not have a vehicle that works.

For the MARTA and CCT bus systems, the fewer the vehicles available per household, the more likely it is that people will ride these systems. This shows that riders are dependent on these systems to get around. For the Clayton and Gwinnett systems (which offered exclusively express services at the time of the survey), this trend is not true, showing that riders of these systems ride more for convenience than necessity.
72 percent of surveyed riders use transit at least five days per week.
If transit services were not available, 31 percent of weekday riders would drive to their destination while another 26 percent would ride with somebody else.
The most popular "transportation sequence" (how one gets to transit ­ what form of transit was taken ­ how one gets to their final destination) was walk-bus-walk. The higher the household income, the more likely it is that the rider would drive to transit, then take MARTA rail, then walk to their final destination. This latter sequence was the most popular response for riders from households with incomes greater than $80,000.