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Summary of Recommended Standardized Procedures and Guidelines 21
Unit non-response is a significant and growing problem in household travel surveys. A num-
ber of standardized procedures and guidelines are recommended as a means to attempt to reduce
this phenomenon. Some of these overlap or duplicate those found elsewhere in this report. The
following standardized procedures are recommended:
1. Use pre-survey monetary incentives. The positive effect of incentives has been clearly
demonstrated in the research reviewed and undertaken here. In contrast to the findings
of Section 2.2.8, it appears that larger incentives may be required to convince those who
usually refuse or terminate the survey to complete it. This may require a second round
of attempts to convert non-responders to responders in which a higher incentive is
offered to induce conversion.
2. Use a pre-notification letter and reminders. Special care is required in formulating the pre-
notification letter so that it is simple in language, appealing to a wide range of people, and
clearly sets forth the importance of responding. Care must also be taken in determining
who should sign the letter and in the affiliations shown in the letterhead used.
3. Special train interviewers. Where interviewers are used, special training of interviewers has
been shown to have substantial effects on response. Therefore, considerable effort should
be paid to developing thorough and complete training of interviewers.
4. Increase efforts to contact households that are difficult to contact. This may be done by increas-
ing the number of calls for non-contacted units, designating specific times to call non-
contacted units, expanding the data collection period, and conducting face-to-face interviews.
5. Undertake non-response surveys. Non-response surveys should be undertaken as a standard ele-
ment of all household travel surveys, rather than as the exception that is the present situation.
The following guidance is also offered, based on the research undertaken on this topic:
1. Efforts should always be undertaken to reduce respondent burden in the design of any survey.
This often has more to do with the ease with which people can complete the survey task
than the actual length of the survey per se.
2. Shorter surveys should be used wherever possible. This raises difficult issues as the need for
more detailed data emerges in the transportation profession. Pilot surveys offer a useful
mechanism for testing alternative designs, and focus groups should also be used in the
design process to determine how to make a survey design shorter while still being effective.
3. Options should be provided on how and when to respond. These options appear likely to
increase the number of terminators who will complete the survey. However, more research
is needed on the effect of mixed-mode surveys.
2.2.7 D-10: Initial Contacts
The subject of this section is the first contact made with a potential respondent in a survey.
Contact can be by telephone, mail, e-mail, or possibly even personal interview. In telephone
surveys and personal interviews, it involves the very first few words uttered following contact
with a prospective respondent. When the initial contact is by mail, it is the envelope in which
the material is mailed, the documentation in the envelope, and the opening sentence on the
cover letter.
The primary need is to design the introduction to surveys in such a fashion that refusals are
avoided as much as possible. Currently, the proportion of refusals that occur during initial con-
tact is surprisingly high. The factors that influence the rate at which people hang up seem to have
received relatively little research in the past. Further discussion of this is to be found in Section 5.7
of the Technical Appendix.
Standardized procedures on script formulation would be advantageous in limiting the grow-
ing trend in hang ups with telephone surveys. However, further research is required before any
