Distinguished Speaker Series

State of Practice in Travel Survey

by

Professor Peter R. Stopher
Professor of Transport Planning
Institute of Transport & Logistics Studies
University of Sydney, Australia

About the Speaker

Peter R. Stopher is Professor of Transport Planning at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney, a position he has held since the beginning of 2001. He was educated at the University of London, where he received both his B.Sc. (Eng.) in Civil Engineering and Ph.D. in Traffic Studies. He has been a professor at Northwestern University, Cornell University, McMaster University, and Louisiana State University, where he held the endowed chair of the Louisiana Land and Exploration Company. He spent 11 years from 1980 through 1990 as a full–time transport planning consultant in private industry.

Professor Stopher has 45 years of professional experience in transport planning, travel forecasting, travel–behaviour modeling and associated areas. He has an international reputation in travel–demand modeling, and the development of new procedures for travel forecasting. He was one of the pioneers of the development of disaggregate travel–demand models and was the first to use and apply the logit model in the 1960s. He has been in the forefront of work to assess the shortcomings of conventional travel–forecasting models with respect to the demands of clean air legislation and goals. He was selected by the US Federal Highway Administration to develop one of four concept papers on a new paradigm for travel forecasting. He was a founding member of the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Traveler Behavior and Values, serving as its first Chairman from 1971–1977, and again from 1995–1997 and was awarded Emeritus Membership of the Committee in 2002; he also founded the series of International Conferences on Traveler Behaviour that began in 1973 and which will hold its next meeting in Kyoto, Japan in 2006.

In addition to work in travel forecasting, Professor Stopher has also developed a substantial reputation in the field of data collection, particularly for the support of travel forecasting and analysis. He pioneered the development of travel and activity diaries as a data–collection mechanism, and has also written extensively on issues of sample design, data expansion, non-response biases, and measurement issues. He recently completed a report on standardizing household travel surveys, and is working on use of GPS devices in connection with personal travel surveys and for evaluation of voluntary travel behaviour change. Professor Stopher initiated the TRB Subcommittee on Survey Methods, which is now a Committee of the TRB. He co–chaired the international conference on Transport Surveys: Raising the Standard, in Eibsee, Germany in May 1997, the following conference in Kruger Park, South Africa in 2001, and the International Conference on Travel Survey Methods in Costa Rica in 2004.

About the Institute of Transport & Logistics Studies

The Institute of Transport & Logistics Studies is recognised by the Australian Federal Government as the Key Centre of Excellence of Teaching and Research in Transport Management. It was established in July 1995 as a joint venture between the Institute of Transport Studies within the Graduate School of Business at the University of Sydney and the Monash Transport Group within the Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University, Melbourne.

These two groups were leading Australian centres in transport and traffic management education and research in their own right prior to the establishment of the Key Centre. In January 1998, ITS Sydney relocated to the Faculty of Economics (now the Faculty of Economics and Business) and in January 2005 it was renamed as the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies to reflect its new focus. The Key Centre continues to have integrated nodes at the University of Sydney (ITLS-Sydney) and Monash University (ITS-Monash).

The Systemwide Director of the Key Centre and Director of ITLS-Sydney is Professor David Hensher who is regarded as one of Australia's most eminent transport academics and someone in high demand as an adviser to industry and government. Professor Hensher is on the International Advisory Panel of the Land Transport Authority (LTA), Singapore. The Director of ITS-Monash is Associate Professor Geoff Rose who has over 20 years of professional experience in transport planning and policy gained from positions in academia, government and consulting.