Everyday Cycling in Urban Environments: Understanding Behaviors and Constraints in Space-Time - Computational Approaches for Urban Environments - page 186

BT-Q1000XT selected for the data collection (Yeboah et al. 2012 ). First, a self-
reported travel diary was designed which is adopted from questionnaire forms from
UK Department for Transport (DfT 2011 ) and used to collect detailed information
on the mode and duration of each daily trip by participants. Second is a self-reported
form, named Form A, for the collection of further information of participants such as
demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, experience with use of GPS device
for the data collection, and confirmation of collected data. Third is a self-reported
travel behavior form, named Form B, for the collection of cognitive and attitudinal
data on participants' travel environment, attitude, behavior, norm, intention, and
habit. Form B is adopted from Lemieux and Godin's ( 2009 ) work, but results are
not presented here. The detailed information from travel diaries was used in order
to clean up the collected GPS tracks and identify the cycling tracks for further
analysis using GIS methods. Additional materials, mainly for the field campaign,
were prepared: flyers, brochures, and posters; web pages using SurveyMonkey
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_monkey ) ; and a leaflet containing frequently
asked questions as well as important issues on the use of the GPS device. The
leaflet was added to the travel diaries and given to participants during the data
collection phase. A consent form and research statement were also prepared and
added to the instruments in accordance with Northumbria University policy on
ethics (Northumbria 2010 ).

8.4.1.2 GPS Tracking

An online and offline campaign strategy was used to approach potential participants.
The campaign period for the field data collection was in September 2011. For
the one online, an email was sent to 350 email contacts among which included
email lists of bicycle user groups of both Northumbria and Newcastle Universities
after securing approval from the moderators. An email address was created and
introduced to the potential participants in the first call message and used thereafter.
The idea of using a separate email address was to allow ease of management of
email responses from participants. Another innovation introduced in the campaign
is the use of twitter service to solicit for participation. Other campaign techniques
were the use of flyers, brochures, and A4 size posters on notice boards.
Participants carried the GPS device for 7 days while filling the forms described
earlier. The data collection wave is from October to November 2011. Literature
suggests some variation of duration for GPS-based data collection, but most of the
studies are about 1 week (Anderson et al. 2009 ; Van der Spek et al. 2009 ). Reasons
for the choice of duration as well as time or distance logging interval depend on
several things, for example, memory capacity, battery life, as well as the research
design and scope. The log interval used in the design of this research is 5 s.
A total of 118 responses were received from the field campaign with 111 screened
as utility cyclists making the response rate about 34 %. The idea behind the
screening and sample size is also to ensure that the expected wide range of activity
and movement patterns (Van der Spek et al. 2009 , p. 3052) are captured that will