The design of environmentally aware travel diaries

Abstract

Any policy addressing the concerns and trends associated with the impact of travel on the environment should be based on a solid understanding of the activities giving rise to them. While the measurement of the total environment loads by air or noise measurement stations is essential, it needs to be matched by the observation of the human behaviours creating them. This is especially true in the transport sector, which has been rightly or wrongly identified as having the potential to make a substantial contribution to the reduction of air and noise pollution. While the contribution of freight transport is of growing concern and importance, this paper focuses on the measurement of passenger transport throughout. In the past transport planners have largely relied on the travel diary as their prime instrument to measure traveller behaviour. The travel diary is a survey instrument designed to record all movements during the course of one or more days including their relevant details. It is complemented by spearate household and personal forms for recording general information. In the following paper the term travel diary implies all three elements (the diary, the person form and the household form). The remainder of the paper discusses to what extent and how the travel diary can be used to capture data for the assessment of policies directed at reducing the impact of transport on the social and natural environment. The requirements of a travel diary and the potential uses of new technologies in realising such a travel diary are then presented. A brief outlook on the possibilities of reasling such a diary concludes the paper.