Exploitation of the explanatory content in Austria on the way

Changing basic conditions in transport planning and innovation policy call for new indicators as a basis for high-quality and policy-matching decisions. Studies show trends towards saturation of certain variables (e.g. motorization rate). Purchasing power and other financial aspects (such as income levels) have been identified as drivers for changes in mobility behaviour. Intersecting consumer surveys and mobility surveys is crucial to tackle the challenges of a multimodal and sustainable system.

The goal of the“AEIÖU” project is to exploit the full potential of the current mobility survey (ÖU) by applying innovative methods of intersecting different data sources. Statistical matching and record linkage enable insights far beyond those of standard analyses. At first we will identify relevant issues… followed by a potential assessment of the explanatory power of current data sources. Then we identify shortcomings and possibilities to overcome them by intersecting existing data. Complementary to current stand-alone mobility surveys which render only general subjective data (e.g. household income), more and more detailed input parameters of mobility decisions (e.g. commuting subsidies, assessment of trip chains, effect of ICT, etc.) can be defined by adding information from consumer surveys. Thus, the effects on other cost components of private households (e.g. housing costs, leisure expenditures, etc.) can also be evaluated. This comprehensive approach yields a wide range of new variables and indicators, e.g. concerning shopping or leisure trips.

The output of the project AEIÖU is:

1. a catalogue of questions of interest from a societal, transport political, economic and environmental point of view – combined with
2. an analysis which of those questions can be answered solely by exploiting the current mobility survey (ÖU) and which by linking or intersecting with other data sources,
3. the development of apt methods and possibly necessary additional surveys to collect still missing data as well as
4. the realization of test-cases to demonstrate the applicability and relevance of the methods developed in AEIÖU.