KITE

Travel behaviour surveys have to win and then maintain the cooperation of respondents from the first to the last contact with them. While not excessively demanding, they do require respondents to engage in a task with a highly variable response burden. This is due to the varying number of journeys undertaken during the reporting period. For long distance travel this can range from zero to dozens of journeys in a typical eight week reporting period. The details about each journey are also substantial (duration, timing, mode, costs, (route) of each stage, i.e. vehicle used), so that respondents have to be conscientious. The specific challenge of longdistance travel surveys is therefore to find a balance between the need to capture the correct number of all such journeys, while obtaining detailed information for at least some of them. In the Framework of the KITE Project (A Knowledge Base for IntermodalPassenger Travel in Europe) a new survey methodology based on the MEST (Methods for European Surveys of Travel Behaviour) and INVERMO (Intermodale Vernetzung) approaches has been developed which contains a journey roster with basic descriptions of long distance journeys and a stage form for the detailed information about the last previous three long distance journeys. During the November 2008 and February 2009 3399 persons were surveyed with two different protocols. The first protocol was used in Switzerland and Portugal and consists of a full CATI for the long-distance travel survey and a written part for the SP questionnaire. In Czech republic the same survey was carried out as face-to-face interviews.

出行行为调查须自首次接触至最终回访的全流程中，争取并维系受访者的合作配合。尽管调查本身并未过度苛求，却仍要求受访者完成应答负担差异悬殊的调查任务。这是因为报告周期内受访者的出行次数并不固定：以典型的八周报告周期为例，长途出行的次数可从零次到数十次不等。每一次出行的相关细节亦颇为繁复，涵盖各行程段的时长、时段、出行方式、成本、（路线）即所使用的交通工具等，因此需要受访者认真细致地完成填报。
因此，长途出行调查面临的核心挑战，在于如何在准确统计所有此类出行次数与至少获取部分出行的详细信息之间找到平衡点。在KITE项目（KITE Project，欧洲多式联运旅客出行知识库）的框架下，研究人员基于MEST（欧洲出行行为调查方法，Methods for European Surveys of Travel Behaviour）与INVERMO（多式联运网络，Intermodale Vernetzung）的研究思路，开发了一套全新的调查方法：该方法包含用于记录长途出行基本信息的出行名册，以及用于详细记录受访者此前三次长途出行各行程段细节的行程段表单。
2008年11月至2009年2月期间，研究人员采用两种不同的调查方案，共对3399名受访者开展了调查。第一种调查方案在瑞士与葡萄牙实施，其针对长途出行调查采用全流程计算机辅助电话调查（Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing，CATI），并配套SP问卷的书面填写环节；捷克共和国则采用面对面访谈的方式开展了本次调查。