Public transport surveys measure the origin destination pattern, journey purpose and time-of-day profile of trips using the surveyed public transport route(s).

Passenger interview surveys are conducted by the interviewer (face-to-face or via reply paid postcards), either surveying people at bus stops/train stations, or on board public transport vehicles. The survey is usually conducted on an ‘average’ weekday in a ‘neutral’ month. It is often difficult to get adequate sample sizes from passenger interview surveys, particularly on infrequent routes with low patronage. However, other difficulties including on board crowding and passengers’ lack of willingness to take part make these surveys difficult to conduct cost effectively.

Traditionally, there has been a general lack of bus-based origin-destination data for TMfS and indeed for other transport models. As a result, the collection of such data for Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness was seen as important in improving the public transport element of the new national model. Given that these were inter-urban surveys, the data also provided valuable data for a range of other important towns including Stirling, Falkirk, Dunfermline, Livingston, Ayr, Kilmarnock and Cumbernauld.

An initial desk based review of timetables and routes was undertaken to identify where data collection was required and a cordon was defined around each city designed to capture all bus-based movements into and out of the urban area. Passenger interviews and accompanying occupancy survey were conducted between 7am and 7pm on a typical weekday. The collected origin-destination data was processed and demand matrices prepared suitable for incorporation in the national model.