Do you drive alone to work or take your bike? Do you combine your trip to school with your trip to the grocery store? Do you carpool so you can make use of the HOV lane? Or work staggered hours to avoid rush hour?

Now, nearly 5,000 randomly selected Arizona households will have the chance to share information about their day-to-day travel experiences and needs – and earn some money for their participation.

The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) is conducting a Household Travel Survey to help regional transportation planners understand current travel patterns and predict what improvements are needed in the future. Over the next few months, randomly selected residents of Maricopa and Pinal counties will receive a postcard invitation to participate. As an incentive, ETC Institute, the transportation research firm contracted to conduct the study, is providing up to $100 for those households who complete the survey.

“This survey provides much needed information about regional travel, including the places people go, the way they get there, the challenges they may have, and much more,” said Buckeye Mayor Eric Orsborn, chair of the Transportation Policy Committee. “We want to learn how residents get around, whether by car, by cycling or walking, or by taking public transportation, so that we can continue to improve the system to make their travel easier and safer.”

Households participating in the survey will be assigned a travel day and use an app to record their travel on that day. Participants will be asked about mode of travel, vehicle occupancy and other information needed to understand why and how people travel in the area. Each participating household will only be responsible for recording travel for a 24-hour period. It will take about a year for the study to engage the target goal of 5,000 households. The results will be used to analyze and forecast the travel patterns in our region, providing an essential input to ongoing and future planning efforts. All information collected is confidential, and individual responses will not be released.

To learn more about the survey and sign up to participate, please visit Phoenix Area Household Travel Survey or azmag.gov/travelsurvey.