The Michigan Department of Transportation is kicking off a household travel survey that will provide information needed to set transportation priorities for the next 20 years.
MDOT’s Katie Beck tells us MI Travel Counts surveys were started in 2004 with the last one done in 2015, and it’s time for another one. She expects it will find some changes in travel habits since 2015.
“We have seen different modes and different purposes show up, but especially in recent years, we suspect that there’s a lot of change that we haven’t been able to capture without having that survey,” Beck said. “Like we see reports across the country of greater work from home and maybe people taking trips at different times of the day, but this survey can really give us some one-to-one comparison data on that.”
MDOT is going to randomly select households to be invited to take part in the survey. Those who are selected with receive a letter by mail with instructions. For the survey period, they’ll log their travel information using an app, a website, or by phone.
The agency is looking to survey 14,000 people in the next two years. Beck says the information gathered will enable MDOT to better plan the state’s roads and other modes of transportation.
