The Potential of Response Rate in Online Transportation Surveys

The mobility policies adopted throughout Brazilian history have become inefficient due to the rapid and usually disordered growth of urban areas. Thus, those mobility policies must be revised and adapted considering the new dynamics of the environment. Studies of population displacements identify patterns of urban travel considering the origin, destination, time, reason and transportation mode. The Origin/Destination (OD) survey allows knowing the characteristics of daily trips considering its reason and the mode of transportation used. Those mapped information offer a picture of mobility in the region and represent an important step towards improving transportation and quality of life. The traditional methods to perform OD survey often results in low response rate because of the responder and its lack of interest, usually justified by the time taken to answer the questionnaire. However, the increasing digital inclusion becomes an enabler for online surveys: in Brazil, 51.2% of the surveyed population have access to mobile phones, landline phones, computers and internet at home (FGV, 2011), which is a great stimulus to the application of surveys using digital media. In this context, this paper shows the results of the response rate of online surveys, analyzing its accession and reliability and not ignoring the existence of both difficulties and benefits compared to traditional data collection methods. The reason for evaluating this type of application is, in the first place, its potential in data collection. The online OD survey was tested to obtain OD data to Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) - Campus Pampulha.