RESPONDENT BURDEN. IN: TRANSPORT SURVEY QUALITY AND INNOVATION

This chapter addresses two key components of response burden: the outright initial nonresponse that is quite likely the result of an underlying increase in the number of surveys; and the perceived response burden, the key contributors to which can be: the appropriate moment, the perceived relevance of the survey, external pressures, respondent willingness. Some of the ways survey designers might respond to the above challenges include: first and foremost, design and conduct of a pilot study to assess the ways in which the burden to respondents can be kept at a minimum; development and use of a complexity index to estimate the likely response burden of a survey for a given person or person type; conduct of some participant observation studies; and survey designers' performance of interviewers themselves.