Information for Participating Households

Why is it important to participate?
How were you chosen?
What is the survey process?
Why did we send out reminders?
Which people in your household were surveyed?
What is being asked in the survey?
Which routes are important for the survey?
Where can you receive assisstance?
How are we protecting your privacy?
When will the results be published?

Why is it important to participate?

Transport planning has the task of making it possible for all population groups to participate in society. It is therefore important to know the mobility needs of all people. This is only possible if as many people as possible take part in such a survey and provide information about their traffic behavior.

It is therefore necessary that people take part in the survey who, for example

• only go out of the house occasionally or not at all,
• predominantly complete short distances,
• do not have a car or
• have not been in their city on the reference date.

Persons with limited mobility are also explicitly asked to participate in the survey.

How did we choose you?

Since it is not possible to interview the entire population, a selected part of the population is interviewed on behalf of all inhabitants.

The addresses of the persons are drawn at random from the population registers of the cities and municipalities. There are no restrictions regarding age, nationality, main or secondary residence. The respective households are contacted on the basis of these addresses.

Due to the random selection, it is possible that, for example, neighbors of a selected household may not receive the survey documents.

What is the survey procedure?

All selected households will first receive an official letter of announcement. In this letter they are informed about the purpose of the survey and asked for the participation of all household members. This mailing also contains important information and materials for participation in the survey.

Households that are not listed in public telephone directories will also receive a short questionnaire. Households are asked to provide an e-mail address and/or telephone number, among other things, on the short questionnaire and to return it to the survey institute with an enclosed return envelope that does not need to be stamped. After the contact details have been received there, these households will receive a second mailing containing information sheets for a specific cut-off date.

Households to which a telephone number could be assigned from public telephone directories are already informed about the respective cut-off date in the announcement letter.

All households for which a telephone number is available or has been provided are called by the survey institute after the cut-off date and are asked about the household and the routes of all household members on the cut-off date.

Optionally, all households also have the opportunity to participate in the survey with an online questionnaire.

For both the telephone and online survey, the participating persons can refer to a waybill on which they have noted down their routes on the key date as a reminder.

Why are reminders sent out?

There are various reasons why selected persons do not respond to the request to return the short questionnaire. These include the fact that the survey documents were misplaced or forgotten. Therefore we take the liberty of sending a maximum of two reminders.
   
Nevertheless, participation in the survey is of course voluntary. We will not contact you after the second reminder and will delete your data. If you do not wish to participate, please ignore these reminders.

The reminders will be sent automatically. If the receipt or recording of your answer has overlapped with them, you may still have received a reminder even though your answer was already on its way or has just arrived.

Who in your household will be surveyed?

All persons who live together in the respective household will be interviewed. This also includes children, but this is always done through their legal guardians.

Persons who were not travelling on the reference date are also explicitly asked to take part in the survey.

What is asked?

Information is asked about the household and the people living in the household. This includes, for example, the number of cars in the household and the frequency of use of public transport. Particularly important is information on the routes taken by all persons living in the household for a given reference date.

Which routes are important for the survey?

All distances travelled on the given reference date are important. This also includes footpaths, ways home, return journeys, walks and short distances (e.g. taking letters to the post box, fetching bread rolls). This also applies to journeys that took place after midnight.

A way is always connected with a specific purpose or goal (e.g. work, shopping, leisure time) (example: from home to work, then to lunch, back to work, then from work to shopping and then home = 5 ways).

The way there and back are always two different ways.

If you use several means of transport or change trains, this remains one way (example: from the cinema on foot to the bus stop, by bus home and then on foot to the apartment = 1 way).

Circular routes, i.e. routes with the same starting point and destination (e.g. walk, bike ride, walk your dog) are also two different ways. The first half of the way (way 1) has the corresponding purpose (e.g. leisure time), the second half of the round trip (way 2) is the way home.

Where can you get help?

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact the Omnitrend survey institute. You can reach it under

the free telephone number 0800 / 830 1 830 or
the e-mail address kontakt@srv2013.de.

How do we protect your data?

It is assured that both the Technische Universität Dresden and the commissioned survey institute Omnitrend GmbH comply with the relevant provisions on data protection. All persons involved in the survey have committed themselves in writing to comply with these provisions. Compliance with the data protection regulations is monitored.

After the household survey, your address and your details will be separated.

The address and your telephone number remain confidential. They will be deleted as soon as all answers from your household have been recorded completely and without errors, at the latest at the end of the survey.

Your details will be converted into numbers and transferred to a data storage device (tape drive, hard disk) without your name, address or destination addresses (i.e. anonymized). Thus, no personal reference can be made in the anonymized data.

When will the results be published?

The results are expected to be available in autumn 2014 and will initially be made available to clients. They will then be responsible for further publication under their own direction.

Results that are independent of the city, e.g. on city groups and overriding development trends, will also be published by the TU Dresden from autumn 2014.