DOI: 10.3886/icpsr34683
title: Washoe County Travel Characteristics Study, 2005
title: Archival Version

description: The Washoe County Travel Characteristics Study, 2005, is a comprehensive survey of the travel patterns of households in Washoe County, Nevada. The survey was conducted for the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) over a two-month period, from October through November 2005. The data are drawn from 1,174 households within the RTC planning area and contain information about 2,679 household members, 2,138 vehicles, and details regarding 11,077 unlinked trips. The survey relied on the willingness of regional households to (1) provide demographic information about the household, its members, and its vehicles, and (2) have all household members record all travel and activity for a specific 24-hour period. Respondents were asked to provide detailed household information, including number of occupants, type of dwelling unit, number of vehicles available to household occupants, as well as the year, make, model, and fuel type for each vehicle. In order to identify households eligible to participate in the voluntary GPS portion of data collecting, respondents were asked whether their vehicle(s) had a working cigarette lighter or power outlet. Following the initial recruitment phase, survey participants received mailed questionnaires to aid in documenting travel information during the 24-hour assessment period. Respondents were instructed to record their mode of transportation, trip purpose, departure and arrival times, number of passengers, and parking cost. Demographic information for this study includes age, sex, race, disability, income, and employment status.
description: The primary objective of the study was to document travel behavior data characteristics of regional households in order to update the regional transportation model for Washoe County.
description: For information regarding weights, please refer to the Original P.I. Documentation section of the ICPSR Codebook.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: The overall response rate, calculated according to standards established by the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, was 26 percent (this included a 35 percent recruitment rate and a 73 percent retrieval rate).
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: Metropolitan Travel Behavior Survey Series
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI), mail questionnaire 
This study included a voluntary technology supplement that equipped a subsample of household vehicles with global positioning systems (GPS). For additional information on the GPS portion of the study, please see the Original P.I. Documentation section of the ICPSR Codebook.
 For additional information on the Washoe County Travel Characteristics Study, 2005, please visit the Metropolitan Travel Survey Archive Web site and the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County Web site.
description: Households in Washoe County, Nevada. Smallest Geographic Unit: census tract
description: The sample was designed with the following main objectives: (1) To produce a statistically adequate number of observations at a geographic level; (2) To produce data depicting the diverse travel behavior in the region; and (3) To minimize selection bias across subgroups in the population, particularly those that are more difficult to reach (high income households, the very poor, mobile persons such as renters and others). The general approach was that of a stratified probability sample that was randomly drawn proportionate to the number of households within the county. Households without telephones and households with only cellular numbers were excluded from the study. For additional information on sampling, please see the Original P.I. Documentation section of the ICPSR Codebook.