' HATS ' : a technique for investigating household decisions

The Household Activity-Travel Simulator is a survey technique which is designed to investigate households' everyday decisions about their use of transport and land-use facilities. The interview procedures and survey equipment are described and examples given of different applications of the technique. These are wide ranging and include educational, research, and policy-oriented studies. Introduction This paper describes a survey technique which may be used to investigate the processes, outcomes, and wider repercussions of everyday household decisions. Known as the Household Activity-Travel Simulator or 'HATS', the technique involves the use of display equipment in a group, in-depth interview. The procedure makes explicit many of the constraints and linkages which affect decisionmaking and this greatly increases the realism of the responses in the interview. HATS has been used in studies undertaken by academics, consultants, and localauthority staff. The technique seems very versatile and able to handle a wide range of household decisions which involve the use of transport or land-use facilities. The interviews generate both quantitative and qualitative data and by modifying the procedure HATS may perform a range of functions. For example, it may be used to assist with policy generation or evaluation, or as an educational device, and in certain circumstances it appears to have a useful role as a forecasting aid. Use of social survey techniques in planning Planners need to obtain considerable information about the views and responses of the population. Many of the transport and land-use policies currently proposed require a perceptive understanding of human behaviour, so that their consequences can be reliably assessed. Traditionally, formal (or informal) monitoring procedures aided by model-building exercises have provided this information, but these alone are not adequate. It is not always reasonable to assume that revealed behaviour reflects choice preferences—people may be forced to respond to conditions in a way contrary to their wishes—and some of the policies now proposed have no precedent from which their effects may be judged. The obvious means of learning what people want or how they would react to a policy measure is to ask them, and in recent years market research techniques have been used by academics and practising planners, with mixed success. Attitudinal techniques have proved particularly popular in studies covering aspects such as shopping provision (Daws and Bruce, 1971), travel mode choice, or leisure participation (Countryside Commission, 1977). These studies have provided useful insights, but some practitioners have become disillusioned by the apparent lack of correspondence between intentions and behaviour; people claim that they will use a new facility, for example, but then fail to do so. f The development of HATS forms part of an SSRC sponsored project on travel choice behaviour begun in 1974; it was first demonstrated at a Conference in March 1976. The manufacture of the equipment is the subject of UK Patent Application No. 45433/76 held jointly by the National Research Development Corporation and M C Dix and P M Jones.