Editor’s note: the following is a brief Q & A about the once a decade Regional Travel Survey (RTS) with TPB Transportation Planner Ken Joh.

What is the Regional Travel Survey (RTS)? How it is different from other transportation surveys?

The 2017/2018 Regional Travel Survey (RTS) is a once-a-decade household travel survey conducted by the TPB. The survey collects detailed information about households and their daily travel obtained from a travel diary. Unlike other transportation surveys which focus on a single mode like the Metrorail survey, or commute trips, like the American Community Survey, the RTS includes all types of trips and travel modes taken in the region, similar to a “transportation census”. The information captured from this survey provides a comprehensive snapshot of regional travel patterns and how these patterns have changed over time.

What types of questions were asked in the RTS? How did survey participants record trips?

The RTS included many different types of questions and the survey was divided into two parts. The first part of the survey asked about household characteristics in addition to new questions on travel options that reduce the need for solo driving, such as ride-hailing and bikeshare. The second part asked detailed questions about household members’ trips taken on an assigned travel day. These questions include the origin and destination, trip purpose, trip duration, travel mode, transit access and egress, and number of persons on the trip. The survey asked participants to record all trips taken by household members on an assigned travel day on the RTS website.

What are some of the key findings from the RTS so far?

TPB staff released the initial results from the travel diary portion of the survey in September and will continue to release results through the end of the year. Some of the key findings from the RTS include:

• Higher income households generally take more daily trips than lower income households
• Households furthest away from the regional core (DC, Arlington, Alexandria) make the most daily trips
• Households without vehicles take fewer trips on average than households with vehicles
• Households in the regional core take more trips by transit, walk, bike, taxi/ride-hail compared to households in the inner and outer suburbs
• Households in regional activity centers are more likely to take transit, walk, bike, or use taxi/ride-hail than households outside of activity centers
• Post-millennials take fewer trips per person than other age groups
• Non-Hispanic whites take more trips per person than other racial/ethnic groups

Did the RTS capture e-scooter trips?

We developed the questions for the RTS prior to e-scooters’ introduction in the DC region. We conducted the survey when e-scooters were starting to emerge in the mobility landscape. The RTS captured some e-scooter trips indirectly but they were not treated as a separate modal category in the survey. TPB conducted a follow-up survey to the RTS in late 2019 which collected more detailed information on trips taken on e-scooters. The follow-up survey asked whether these types of trips have replaced ride hailing services trips such as Uber/Lyft. TPB staff plan to share the results from the follow-up survey at a later date.  

Given the current impacts of COVID-19 on travel patterns, is the RTS still relevant?

While the RTS provides the most recent and comprehensive picture of travel in the Washington metropolitan region, it reflects the region, before the covid-19 pandemic. It does provide a baseline for what used to be a normal period. We are still in the pandemic period now and perhaps there will be a “new normal” when we emerge out of this pandemic. We will have to monitor travel behavior over time under the new normal conditions to better understand the long-term nature of the changes to regional travel pattern and behaviors. The RTS will serve our immediate purposes as well as a useful point of comparison with the “new normal” after the pandemic subsides.

Dr. Kenneth Joh, is a Senior Statistical Survey Analyst at COG. Dr. Joh currently overseas the once-a-decade Regional Travel Survey for the National Capital Region and is a subject matter expert in travel survey methods.