Measuring the Benefits of Intercity Passenger Rail: A Study

Survey Design
The on-board passenger survey is an efficient method for data collection involving transit
properties. The primary advantage of the on-board survey is that it provides access to a target
population that might not be otherwise easy to identify with other data collection methods (11).
For intercity passenger rail, the on-board survey is particularly effective. Passenger trips on lowdensity
intercity passenger rail routes may be rather infrequent and consist of only a small
percentage of overall urban area residents; as such, data collection via a household travel diary
survey would be substantially less effective than an on-board passenger survey (12). The onboard
survey also offers the opportunity for direct sampling, which the analyst can use to draw
conclusions about the entire population of passengers if he or she uses a robust sampling design.
There are several variations of the on-board survey data collection method, all involving
the initial contact with the respondent and distribution of the survey materials taking place onboard
the transit vehicle. Completed surveys can either be collected by survey staff on-board the
vehicle (the “hand-in” option) or mailed back to a central processing facility by the respondent
(the “mail-in” option). Each method has its advantages and drawbacks. If the research design
calls for the passenger’s completed survey is to be returned to the analyst during the trip,
response rates are likely to be higher but time to complete the survey may be an issue if the
respondent’s trip is short in duration. The “hand-out/mail-in” option does provide the respondent
greater time to complete the survey, although there is a greater chance the respondent will
neglect the entire survey after departing the vehicle (13).
As with all survey-based data collection efforts, the design of the survey instrument is
critical to the quality of the responses provided. While most of the literature on the subject of
on-board surveys for transit properties was focused on the urban transit application, the lessons
for survey design are generally still pertinent for on-board surveys of intercity rail passengers. In
addition to guidance from survey design literature, researchers conducted an analysis of
18 survey instruments from past studies of state-supported intercity passenger rail routes to
identify trends for the design of the survey instrument in this study. Surveys ranged in length
between two and eight pages, but most surveys were four pages long. Common elements on the
survey instruments reviewed included passenger trip frequency (100 percent of surveys),
passenger origin, boarding, alighting, and destination (OBAD) data (94 percent), passenger
demographics (89 percent), and passenger trip purpose (78 percent). Passenger alternative mode
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