Alternative Methods for Developing External Travel Survey Data

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has a comprehensive on-going travel survey program that supports the travel demand models being developed for transportation planning efforts in urban areas throughout Texas. One component of the survey program is the external travel survey. External travel surveys provide data on travel movements into, out of, and through urban areas. In recent years, there has been a heightened sensitivity to the methods used to collect external survey data as well as the type of data that is collected. This research examines alternative methods for collecting data on external travel movements and evaluates the potential for synthesizing/modeling external travel in lieu of conducting external surveys. The research will provide recommendations to TxDOT on the most viable methods to estimate external travel movements for use in travel demand models in urban areas in Texas.