2019 and 2022 New York City Citywide Mobility Survey

The Citywide Mobility Survey assesses the travel behavior, preferences, and attitudes of New York City residents and identifies factors influencing their transportation choices.

Launched in 2017, the annual survey improves understanding of how residents view the city’s current state of transportation, measures attitudes about transportation issues, and determines citywide mode shares. It collects information about the trips made by a representative sample of residents over a given period of time and tracks year-over-year changes in travel behavior, allowing for trends analysis over time.

Data Collection Agency

RSG conducted the 2019 and 2022 studies for the New York City Department of Transportation.

Survey Methodology

2019

Travel behavior data for the 2019 Citywide Mobility Survey were collected from May 2019 to June 2019.

The 2019 survey differed from previous iterations of the survey in two ways: 1) the sampling methodology changed from random-digit dialing to address-based sampling, allowing all complete responses to be weighted, and 2) survey participation via smartphone app was an option in addition to the previously offered online and call center options.

Online and call center participants completed a one-day travel diary, and smartphone participants completed a real-time seven-day travel diary. The survey dataset was weighted to match the population across key sociodemographic dimensions to correct potential bias. It  was also weighted to the 2017 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample to adjust for survey non-response, survey participation mode, and geographic bias due to oversampling and other factors.

2022

Travel behavior data for the 2022 Citywide Mobility Survey were collected from Sept. 28, 2022 to Nov. 17, 2022.

Like the 2019 survey, the 2022 survey used an address-based sampling recruitment method, with online and call center participants completing a one-day travel diary and smartphone participants completing a real-time seven-day travel diary. To compensate for an unusually low response rate, some participants of the 2019 study were invited to participate in the 2022 survey.

To allow for meaningful analysis of travel patterns at a sub-borough level, the survey aimed to enroll 300 participants from each of 10 geographic survey zones composed of aggregations of neighborhood tabulation areas, as defined after the 2010 Census.  

Survey Records, Data, and Documentation

Survey records from 2019 include 8,286 participants from 3,346 households.

Survey records from 2022 include 6,886 participants from 2,966 households.

Users can derive key information from the datasets, including person-trip rates, travel mode shares, vehicle occupancy factors, geographic travel patterns, and more. The datasets consist of a "recruit survey" with information on household composition, demographics, and typical travel behavior as well as a "travel diary" with information about participant travel activities. Data pertaining to the geographic survey zones are available as shapefiles.

For the study's latitude and longitude data, learn how to access the spatial data.

How To Cite the Data

If you use TSDC data in a publication, please contact us and include a citation in your publication consistent with the following format:

"Transportation Secure Data Center." [(year)]. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Accessed [date]: www.nrel.gov/tsdc.

More Studies and Surveys

See cleansed data from other transportation studies and surveys.