TD to conduct Travel Characteristics Survey 2002

The Transport Department (TD) will conduct a Travel Characteristics Survey 2002 (TCS 2002) to collect up-to-date data and information on Hong Kong people's travel characteristics.

A TD spokesman said:" Data collected from the survey will be used to improve the Third Comprehensive Transport Study (CTS-3) model, enable better transport planning and establish an approach for undertaking similar surveys in future."

Previous three TCSs were conducted in 1973, 1981-83 and 1991-93. The information collected was used to develop transport models for producing traffic forecasts in three CTSs in 1974-76, 1986-89 and 1997-99 respectively.

"Since the completion of the last TCS in 1993, the travel patterns of Hong Kong people have changed significantly as a result of many factors, such as, growth in the economy and population, relocation of the airport, development of new towns, increase in cross-boundary traffic movements, changes in commercial activities and their physical locations, implementation of new transport infrastructure projects and increase in awareness of transport needs of people with disabilities," he added.

"Data of the last TCS were collected in 1992 and were adopted in various transport planning studies including the CTS-3 and the Second Railway Development Study completed respectively in 1999 and 2000," he said.

During the TCS 2002 household interviews, data of socio-economic characteristics and trip making characteristics will be collected from about 40,000 households, approximately two percent of the land-based population.

Data will also be collected in 11 topical travel surveys, which covers car availability and usage, value of time, travel propensity, co-ordination of different transport modes, socio-economic and trip making characteristics as well as transport demands and needs of people with different types of disabilities, walking, cycling in new towns and other parts of Hong Kong, cross-boundary and international journeys, journeys to and from special generators of tourism and recreational nodes, effect of new technology, as well as transport telematics and dissemination of transport information.

A traffic consultant has been appointed to design and plan all survey work which will be conducted from August to December this year. Analyses of survey data is scheduled from December 2002 to May 2003 followed by the preparation of study reports from June to October 2003.

Budget for carrying out the TCS 2002 is about $9.5 million.

End/Wednesday, January 16, 2002