Section 5

Origin-Destination Surveys
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CONTENTS
5 ORIGIN-DESTINATION SURVEYS....................................................................................................... 5-1
5.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 5-1
5.2 OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................................................ 5-1
5.3 CONDUCTING A NUMBER PLATE SURVEY ........................................................................................... 5-2
5.3.1 Defining a Cordon................................................................................................................... 5-2
5.3.2 Setting the Survey Time ......................................................................................................... 5-3
5.3.3 Setting the Sample Rate......................................................................................................... 5-3
5.3.4 Selecting the Characters to be Recorded .............................................................................. 5-3
5.3.5 Field Data Collections............................................................................................................. 5-4
5.4 SOURCES OF ERROR IN ORIGIN-DESTINATION SURVEYS ..................................................................... 5-5
5.4.1 Errors in Data Recording ........................................................................................................ 5-5
5.4.2 Start-up and Shut-down Errors............................................................................................... 5-5
5.4.3 Confused Characters.............................................................................................................. 5-5
5.4.4 Spurious Matchings ................................................................................................................ 5-5
5.5 DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF RESULTS .............................................................................. 5-6
5.5.1 Analysis of Number Plate Data............................................................................................... 5-6
5.5.2 Presentation of Results .......................................................................................................... 5-7
5.6 REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................... 5-9

TABLE OF FIGURES
FIGURE 5-1 SETTING CORDON STATION LOCATIONS ............................................................................................ 5-2
FIGURE 5-2 EXAMPLE OF POSSIBLE AMBIGUITIES IN DATA DUE TO STATION LOCATION ........................................... 5-2
FIGURE 5-3 RECORDING OF SEPARATE TURNING MOVEMENTS ............................................................................. 5-3
FIGURE 5-4 INTERNAL AND CORDON LINE STATIONS ............................................................................................ 5-3
FIGURE 5-5 AN EXAMPLE OF A COMPLETED REGISTRATION NUMBER PLATE SURVEY ............................................ 5-4
FIGURE 5-6 EXAMPLE OF A REGISTRATION PLATE MATCHING SURVEY DATA REDUCTION ...................................... 5-6
FIGURE 5-7 ORIGIN-DESTINATION (TRIP-INTERCHANGE) MATRIX .......................................................................... 5-8
FIGURE 5-8 DESIRE LINE DIAGRAM ..................................................................................................................... 5-8

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5 ORIGIN-DESTINATION SURVEYS
5.1 Introduction
The purpose of Origin-Destination Surveys is to reveal where the traffic desires to travel. These surveys may
range from simple studies to determine the amount of traffic that would by-pass a town, to comprehensive
transportation surveys for planning and design of transport systems in a large metropolitan area.
Note that Origin-Destination Surveys are liable to significant errors and biases. In addition, these surveys are
very labour intensive and costly and thus care is needed to avoid wasting scarce resources (Austroads,
1988).

5.2 Overview
Some of the commonly used techniques for gathering Origin-Destination data are (Austroads, 1988):
Number plate survey
This technique involves observers recording the number plate of vehicles and the time at
which each vehicle passed the observer who are stationed at selected points in and around
the survey area. By matching the observations, the route taken by a vehicle can then be
determined. Information on how to conduct a number plate survey follows in Section 5.3.
Roadside interview technique
This technique involves directing vehicles into a roadside station where the drivers are asked
to respond to a preset questionnaire about the details of their trip. The interview should be
short, simple and unambiguous to both the interviewer and the interviewee. The principles of
good questionnaire design should be applied including only asking for information relevant to
the purpose of the survey.
Postcard survey
This technique involves directing vehicles into a roadside station where the drivers are
requested to take and complete a questionnaire, and then post back the completed copy. To
increase the response rate, it is recommended that the postage be reply-paid. This type of
survey returns similar data to roadside interviews, but a maximum of five questions is
recommended. A return of at least 20% is considered essential to ensure reasonable data.
Headlight survey
This technique involves asking drivers at a particular site to switch their headlights on and
keep them on for a set period or until asked to extinguish them. Observers are stationed at
downstream sites where they record the vehicles with headlights lit. This technique requires
high levels of public co-operation and can only be used in daylight hours. It should only be
applied in relatively simple networks.
Windscreen sticker technique
This technique is similar to the headlight survey, but provides opportunities for differentiation
of more separate origins by using different colours of stickers. This technique is commonly use
for studies involving movements away from large trip generators such as shopping centres or
sports fields. Stickers can be placed on parked vehicles, or handed out to patrons before they
leave the site. The stickers are then collected at designated survey cordon stations.
Registration address technique
This technique involves recording vehicle registrations and then checking the registered
address of each vehicle from official records. The registered address is assumed to be the
origin and/or destination. This technique has a significant problem in that there is an inherent
assumption that the registered address is the actual trip origin or destination.

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5.3 Conducting a Number Plate Survey

Based on Austroads 1988, the following clauses outline information on how to conduct a number plate
survey.
5.3.1 Defining a Cordon
The cordon area is the boundary around the study area for which trip movements are required. It may
consist of physical boundaries (eg. rivers, hills, parkland); major transport facilities (eg. railways,
freeways or other links with limited access or crossing opportunities); jurisdictional boundaries (eg.
municipal boundaries); or arbitrary boundaries. Survey stations are then located on the cordon, and
possibly inside the area to permit observation of movements into, inside, and out of the area. Care
needs to be taken in locating stations so as to both minimise the number of stations while maintaining
the required level of detail (see Figure 5-1). If stations are scattered throughout the study area, as well
as at the cordon, the method can also be used to obtain large samples of travel time data between
stations and to determine routing of individual vehicles through the study area (TRL, 1993).

Cordan A Cordan B

Y Y

X X

8 stations with data for external trips 14 stations with no data on external trips
known eg. X to Y eg. X to Y
Figure 5-1 Setting cordon station locations
Stations should also be located in a manner to as to remove possible ambiguities in the data. Figure
5-2 shows an example of a possible problem.

X X

Y Y Cordon D
Cordon C
Study Area Study Area

(a) Adopting Cordon C means that the left (b) Adopting Cordon D now means that the
turn from Y to X is outside the cordon and left turn from Y to X is now an internal
may either duplicate the data collected or movement with no data collected.
lead to problems of interpretation. This is
because the left turn (Y to X) may be
logically interpreted as a trip entering the
area at X and leaving the area at Y.
Figure 5-2 Example of possible ambiguities in data due to station location

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When stations are located at junctions, observations should be made of each separate turning
movement as shown in Figure 5-3.

Station A Station A

(a) Observations at Station A taken of (b) Observations at Station A taken of each

combined turning movements. separate turning movement.
Figure 5-3 Recording of separate turning movements

For certain surveys, internal stations (ie. observation points inside the study area) may be required in
addition to the cordon line stations. Figure 5-4 shows that stations A, B, and C are internal stations, while X,
Y and Z are cordon line stations.

Y
X

A B C

Z
Cordon line stations X, Y and Z
Internal stations A, B and C
Figure 5-4 Internal and cordon line stations
5.3.2 Setting the Survey Time
The survey should be organised to cover the period of the day when divertible traffic will be observed such
as peak period flows in urban areas, or busy times at shopping centres. The duration of the survey must
cover the period when divertible traffic will be observed. There is further requirement which relates to the
possibilities for mismatching of vehicle observations due to start up and close down non-matching errors,
as outlined in Section 5.4.2.
5.3.3 Setting the Sample Rate
Usually it is not possible to record the registration numbers of all vehicles, so in practice a subset of the total
flow is chosen. It is important that the subset is chosen such that surveyors at all points can record 100% of
the subset (TRL, 1993). Sampling of number plates is usually performed on the basis of a specified digit,
such as the last digit of the number plate. If sampling is based on the last digit, say 4, the sampling rate is
one in ten (10%). If sampling is based on the two different last digits, say 1and 2, then the sampling rate is
one in five (20%). It is recommended to select a digit which is less likely to be confused with others, such as
1or 4. Digits such as 6, 8or 9 are poor choices as they are more likely to be confused with others.
5.3.4 Selecting the Characters to be Recorded
The number of characters on the number plate to be recorded is a compromise between the effort in
recording all (or nearly all) of the characters, which results in little duplication of number plates, and
recording a few characters, which gives high recording accuracy but frequent duplication. Good practice is to
record four characters, not including the sampling character, which yields more than 26 000 permutations,
depending on the number of digits or letters possible. It should be noted that most errors and consequent

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mismatchings are the result of misrecording number plates rather than spurious matchings (Austroads,
1988).
5.3.5 Field Data Collections
The following information should be recorded for each observation:
number plate (to a specified number of characters)
location of the observation station
direction of the vehicles travel
time of observation, and
the type of vehicle (optional)
Two surveyors are required at each observation station, one for each direction of traffic flow (TRL, 1993).
Recording may be done using paper and pencil, a cassette tape recorder, or a laptop computer. If there are
technical problems with the cassette tape recorder or laptop computer, the paper and pencil technique
provides an intelligible and reconstructable storage medium. Cassette recordings are useful for heavy flows
but are tedious to transcribe after the survey which can introduce its own special type of errors.
Using the cassette recording technique is one way of reducing staff requirements at the observation station.
For example, one person with a cassette recorder can undertake the same tasks as two people using the
paper and pencil technique.
It is important that no vehicles in the subset are missed. Methods which can be used to ensure no vehicles
are missed include:
using a separate surveyor for each sample digit.
using a separate surveyor for each vehicle class.
having one surveyor looking and shouting, and one recording, so traffic flow is continually
scanned.
Appendix A shows the standard form that should be used to undertake a registration number plate survey
using the floating car method. An example of a completed survey sheet is shown in Figure 5-5.

Figure 5-5 An example of a completed Registration Number Plate survey

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5.4 Sources of Error in Origin-Destination Surveys

Errors in origin-destination surveys can arise from (Austroads, 1988):
errors in field data collection, including misrecording of data observations and start up and
shut down errors, and
spurious matchings due to combinational effects in the analyses of partial number plates.
5.4.1 Errors in Data Recording
The following errors are commonly made in the collection of number plate data (Austroads, 1988):
The number is missed completely
One or more characters are misrecorded, or two characters are transposed (usually the
middle two characters in a group of four)
The direction of movement is recorded incorrectly by a person who is recording more than one
direction
The type of vehicle is recorded (this is optional)
Minimisation of recording errors is vital in number plate surveys because each mismatched number plate
leads to two apparent unmatched vehicles in the subsequent analysis. It is therefore essential to use
methods which will reduce recording errors. A primary concern is the selection of observers to be used and
the stations at which they are based. Only experienced observers should be sent to sites where heavy traffic
volumes are expected.
5.4.2 Start-up and Shut-down Errors
The first vehicles leaving the cordon at the start of the survey will be interpreted as local trips, even if they
are through trips. This means that there are no records of their entries. A similar problem occurs at the end of
the survey. Without an adjustment for these errors, the results will be biased against through traffic,
especially if the survey area is large or the survey duration is short. There are two adjustment techniques
that can be applied:
Discard all observations leaving the cordon within an arbitrary time after the start of the survey
(say, five minutes) and entering the cordon within an arbitrary time before the end of the
survey. This arbitrary time is a function of the size and type of study area.
Use manual matching of number plates at the start of the survey to determine the time at
which the first wave of vehicles, entering the cordon at the start, passed each station.
Observations before this wave can be discarded. A similar technique can be applied at the
end of the survey.
5.4.3 Confused Characters
Depending on the recording technique, there will be pairs of characters that can be easily confused. For
example, S and 5, 2 and Z, I and 1, O and 0. One possibility is to replace one of each of these pairs
of characters with its partner, eg. code all characters resembling S as 5. For the cassette recording
technique, B and D, M and N, and other similar sounding characters may be treated in the same way.
This method will allow matchings that might otherwise be missed due to recording or transcription errors.
Practical experience suggests that spurious matchings are far less likely than missed matchings.
5.4.4 Spurious Matchings
Errors due to spurious matchings may occur in the analysis of partial number plates.
For example, three different number plates ABC123, BAC123, and CAB123 could be observed. Assuming
that these are correct observations, they therefore represent three different vehicles. If analysis was then
performed on the basis of the last four characters, the partial number plates would therefore be C123,
C123 and B123. This shows that the first two observations match. This is termed a spurious match. If only
the last three characters were used, the observations could all be interpreted as the same vehicle
(Austroads, 1988).
Spurious matches may be a significant source of error, particularly when only a small number of characters
are used from each number plate. Experience suggests that errors in observing and recording number plate

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data more then likely outweigh errors due to spurious matching, certainly if at least four characters of the
number plates are observed.

5.5 Data Analysis and Presentation of Results

5.5.1 Analysis of Number Plate Data
There are many computer programs for the analysis of origin-destination data from number plate surveys.
However, there are some points which need to be considered. Each program will have its own internal logic
and it is possible that two different programs will generate quite different results. Most computer programs do
not account for observer errors and usually they search for exact matchings of number plates, with no editing
functions once the data has been entered into the program (Austroads, 1988).
A two pass procedure is recommended for the analysis of number plate data to account for partial
misrecordings in the data. The first pass looks for exact matchings between recording stations, and produces
an initial origin-destination matrix. Unmatched plates are placed in data files where they are then examined
in the second pass. This is performed by a computer program which searches for almost matched pairs eg.
one character different or two characters transposed. When such pairs are found, the program offers the
user the choice of accepting the match, deferring a decision (while keeping the possible match for further
consideration), or rejecting the match.
This process is continued until the user decides to finish. A total origin-destination matrix is then constructed
by adding the initial matrix of exact matches to the matris of estimated matches from the second pass. This
method can increase the proportion of through trips by up to 15% overall for a survey involving the recording
of peak period traffic movements in a local area network.
If you assume no errors, vehicles entering the study area will have been matched to an exit point, except for
vehicles which either entered during the survey and stayed in the area until after the survey was finished or
which were in the area when the survey started but left during the survey (TRL, 1993). These vehicles form
part of the stopping traffic.
To identify stopping vehicles, a histogram is drawn showing the travel times between each entry and exit
point (see Figure 5-6). The vehicles with the shorter travel times represent the non-stopping traffic, and the
tail of the longer travel times are for those vehicles which stopped in the area for some reason. It is
necessary to decide the boundary between the two types. A simple rule to follow is to use the first gap in the
histogram longer than one minute (TRL, 1993).
For the whole area, non-stopping traffic can be expressed as a proportion of total traffic in the survey period,
where total traffic is all (non-stopping and stopping) matched vehicles plus the unmatched vehicles as
discussed above.
No. of Matched Vehicles Between

60
Two Survey Stations

50

40

30

20

10

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Travel Time (Minutes)

Figure 5-6 Example of a Registration Plate Matching Survey data reduction

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5.5.2 Presentation of Results

The main result from an origin-destination survey is usually a matrix showing the trips from each origin to
every destination defined in the study. This matrix is known as the origin-destination (or trip-interchange)
matrix. An example survey, cordon and origin-destination matrix is shown in Figure 5-7.
A convenient representation of the origin-destination matrix is the desire line diagram. This shows the trip
movement between origin pairs as coloured or shaded blocks superimposed on a map of the study area.
Figure 5-8 shows the desire line diagram for the same example as Figure 5-7.
One problem with the conventional desire line diagram is that the detail of the display may be lost when
there are many origins and destinations. The use of interactive graphics packages enables the analyst to
select the whole or some part of the origin-destination matrix for display. This enables a proper/clearer
understanding of the traffic movements.

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A B
H C

G D
F E

Insert number of trips from each origin to every destination

Destination
A B C D E F G H
A
B
C
Origin

D
E
F
G
H 116 261 319 218 261 131 87 58
Figure 5-7 Origin-destination (trip-interchange) matrix

8%
4% A B 18%
H C 22%

G D 15%
6% F E
9% 18%
% of destination: ?%
Figure 5-8 Desire line diagram

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5.6 References
Addis Ababa City Roads Authority (AACRA), 2002, Pavement Maintenance Management System Data
Collection Manual, Addis Ababa City Administration, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Austroads, 1988, Guide to Traffic Engineering Practice, Part 3 Traffic Studies, Austroads, Sydney.
Transport Research Laboratory, 1993, Overseas Road Note 11 Urban Road Traffic Surveys, Overseas
Centre, Transport Research Laboratory, Crowthorne, Berkshire, United Kingdom.

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