Deciding when or if transport survey data should be updated.

Smith, Nariida Carolyn; Wigan, Marcus

Abstract

Transport data managers within government and non-government agencies face increasing demands on resources for data management systems to process extremely large data sets collected by automated systems and for surveys to collect new types of data. These are seldom accompanied by a corresponding rise in departmental budgets and thus decisions about the frequency of major surveys to update existing data become important. This paper reports the results of study which set out to produce a generic framework for effective and efficient survey update, underpinned by theory and practice from the literature. However the literature directly addressing this subject was found to be extremely thin. Lack of attention to the question was confirmed via a survey of international experts who agreed that in practice update was usually triggered by external circumstances. The study thus drew on related literature and reported practice to develop some principles for establishing update frequencies and build a process model. This decision framework, illustrated by examples is presented here.

Citation

Smith, N. C., & Wigan, M. (2008). Deciding when or if transport survey data should be updated.

• Conference Name: Transportation Research Board 87th Annual Meeting
• Start Date: Jan 13, 2008
• End Date: Jan 17, 2008
• Publication Date: 2008
• Deposit Date: Jun 6, 2013
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Automatic data collection systems; budgeting; costs; decision making; Information management; literature reviews; methodology; state of the practice; time intervals; traffic surveys
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/6099