assessing the transportation needs of welfare-to-work participants in ...

As part of the “trip diary” information that was collected in the beginning of the interview,
respondents were asked at what time they left their house for the first time and then on
subsequent trips, how long they stayed at each location. Later in the survey, respondents were
asked for the time they began and ended work, if the times did not fluctuate. Each time these
variables were encountered, Ci3 was programmed to accept a special type of key instruction, a
“time” response, which either denoted a time or the number of hours and minutes. This response
type was used 11 times to program the survey instrument.
Another special type of key instruction collects a five-digit zip code. During the survey,
respondents were asked for the zip code of their place of employment. At the conclusion of the
telephone survey, respondents were asked to provide their home zip code so that they could
receive the incentive offer of a pre-paid phone card.
Several times during the survey respondents were asked questions that required a numeric
response, but for which the “key” instruction could not be used because the answer could have
resulted in a number that was more than one character in length. For example, respondents were
asked the number of times over the past three months that their car failed to get them where they
needed to go because of mechanical problems.
Most of the questions programmed for this survey required the respondent to provide only one
answer. However on two occasions, answers were solicited for which the respondent could
select one or more items from a set of response categories. First, respondents who indicated that
there was a car in the household were asked for the two biggest problems associated with owning
the car. In addition, all respondents were asked if they received any of four types of assistance
from the County for their transportation costs.
The last type of question, used twice during this study, was a special type of a “select” question.
Respondents were first read a list of four possible public transportation programs and then four
possible programs for car ownership. For each question, respondents were asked to rank each of
the options from most to least helpful. These questions were programmed to cause each answer
choice to be marked with a rank order. The first answer chosen is marked 1, the second-chosen is
marked 2, etc. This allows the interviewer to keep all of the choices on his or her screen and
allows the respondent to change his or her mind. The interviewer can click again on any answer
to de-select it and the remaining rank orders are recalculated automatically.
Questionnaire Revisions
Several revisions were incorporated to the instrument after the pre-test. Additionally, a series of
questions addressing transportation and access to health care were incorporated due to a request
from the Board approved Long-Term Self-Sufficiency Plan. Four questions that asked
respondents about trips that involve getting to health care facilities, such as hospitals, health care
centers, emergency rooms, etc., were added to the questionnaire. These questions were added on
December 8, 1999 after four days of interviewing with the finalized survey instrument. The
additional health questions included were: 1) “Have you, or has anyone in your household that
depends upon you for transportation, visited a health care facility for any reason in the past 6
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