INTRODUCTION    Purpose       Data Collected

The NPTS serves as the nation's inventory of daily personal travel. It is the only authoritative source of national data on the daily trips including, but not limited to:

• purpose of the trip (work, shopping, etc.);
• means of transportation used (car, bus, subway, walk, etc.);
• how long the trip took, i.e., travel time;
• time of day the trip took place;
• day of week the trip took place, and, if a private vehicle trip;
• number of people in the vehicle, i.e., vehicle occupancy;
• driver characteristics (age, sex, worker status, education level, etc.);
• vehicle attributes (make, model, model year, amount of miles driven in a year); and
• household characteristics (income, location, and number of people, drivers and vehicles).

These data are collected for all:

• trips,
• modes,
• purposes,
• trip lengths, and
• areas of the country, urban and rural.