Prototype Time-Space Diary Design and Administration for a Developing Country

Abstract

Recent interest in developing activity-based models of transport demand has encouraged research on the design and administration of activity diaries. Activities occur in time and space. Traditionally, these two dimensions have been bifurcated. Time-use diary researchers focused on activities whereas travel diary researchers centered on trips. However a combination of both time and travel diaries (time-space diary) could bring out the potential for alternative diary formats. This paper focuses on the development of a time-space diary describing the experience of a pilot survey conducted to identify the best data collection technique. Special attention has also been given to address the problem of nonresponse and missing data. The economic and efficiency analysis is also reported. The future modifications in the survey instrument and method of administration for the final survey are also discussed. Overall, the formulated time-space diary performed better than the conventional travel diary and also the face-to-face survey method emerged as the best way of administration.