Toll road origin-destination travel survey - Internet and mail-back response analysis and implications for future surveys

Use of the Internet compared with mail-back respondents for an origin-destination survey of Central Florida\u27s expressway system users is analyzed. Surveys were distributed by two methods: handing out of surveys to manual-payment and automatic coin machine (ACM) users, and mailing out of surveys to automatic vehicle identification (E-Pass) users. Data collection was primarily by prepaid business reply mail or by Internet. The survey achieved an overall response rate of 12.7 percent: 7.5 percent for manual and ACM users and 20.6 percent for E-Pass users. About 2.5 percent of these responses were made by the Internet. Although Internet response was not specifically requested, the web address was printed on the survey form, and analysis showed that this response method has great potential. The quality and completeness of the responses received via the Internet were much better than those of the responses received by mail; that is, there were fewer nonresponses to items, and they required on average only 6.7 min to finish. The results show that the odds of Internet response are much higher for young respondents (16 to 25 years old) and that the odds of Internet response have a decreasing trend with age. Finally, professionals and E-Pass users tend to have a higher preference for responding by using the Internet. Among the benefits of using the Internet method in this study were the ability to validate the responses and eliminate coding errors and to ensure that key questions in the survey were answered. It provided the possibility to include maps to help respondents identify the ramps they used. The Internet was cost-effective by eliminating printing, mailing, and coding expenses