Program Overview

Thank you very much for participating in the Toyota e.com program. The primary goal of this experiment is to evaluate the potentials of such a travel alternative as a means of reducing urban traffic and vehicle emissions. The demand for travel is derived from the need to participate in activities, therefore, a decision to travel using the shared-use vehicles can only be understood by considering the entire activity scheduling process, both before and after a shared-use vehicle becomes an alternative means of travel. To examine this decision process and to evaluate this travel alternative, a unique data collection procedure is applied to obtain the necessary information from program participants.

The data collection process is proceeding in three phases: (1) before the vehicle-sharing program, (2) during the program, and (3) after the program is completed. A Computer- Aided Self-administered Interview (CASI) program, REACT!, is being used to collect activity schedules from participants. Each REACT! application surveys on a full week of activity scheduling behavior for each participant and other adults in their households. The data from the first phase will depict participants' typical weekly activity programs before the alternative of shared-use vehicles is present. In the second phase when shared-use electric vehicles are available, REACT! is used in conjunction with the GPS tracking instrument, TRACER, installed in all program vehicles. TRACER units integrate GPS capabilities with wireless communications so the vehicles can be tracked in real-time. While the tracking study is running continuously, the REACT! program is being executed at regular intervals. During these weeks, the vehicle tracings will be conveyed to participants as they utilize REACT!. In addition to typical weekly activity schedules, this integration facilitates the exploration of route choice dynamics that may be affected by the unique characteristics of the electric vehicles. This scenario combines data on vehicle paths with contemporaneous data on traffic conditions along that path and also with information from respondents about why specific routes were selected. In the third phase after the program concludes, the Phase 1 procedure is repeated to see if there are any residual effects in participants' activity/travel patterns.

First Phase: REACT! Survey

To participate in the program, it is necessary that you install the survey program, REACT!, in your computer (running Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me, or NT). However, we have made the installation process easy for you. After the survey is finished, you can completely remove the program from you computer.

Only adult members of your household need to participate in the survey. The survey is divided into two parts:

Initial Interview

The Initial Interview consists of a series of computer forms intended to collect basic household and personal information. The Initial Interview should be finished no later than the Sunday evening when the recording of Weekly Activity Diary begins. It is preferable that you fill out the Initial Interview before this Sunday so the amount of time you spend on entering data could be reduced.

Weekly Activity Diary

The recording of the Weekly Activity Diary begins on a Sunday evening and ends on the next Sunday evening. Each night (after 6:00pm), every adult member is expected to log in the program. On the first Sunday evening, you will be asked to indicate the activities you know you will be doing on each day of the coming week (i.e., from Monday morning till next Sunday evening). On Monday evening, you will be asked to update what you have actually done throughout Monday then indicate if there are changes to the plans of the following days (i.e., Tuesday till Sunday). The process will need to be repeated each evening of the surveying week.

If you have Internet connection, each day when you (and your spouse) finish data entry, you can send the data to us. There is no need to worry about the security of transferring data through the Internet!!! Before the data are sent to us, they are compressed and encoded with passwords. Only we, the survey administrators, know the password. If you do not have Internet connection, we will send people to collect the data from you computer when the survey is completely finished after the next Sunday evening.

We expect each participant to spend about 20 to 30 minutes each day to enter data. Participants can withdraw from participation any time during the survey period. The investigator may also withdraw participants at his/her professional discretion before the entire survey is completed. However, because the survey is really intended to evaluate the usefulness of e.com for Toyota, if you decide to withdraw, you also renounce your right of using these electric vehicles.

If you are interested in learning more about the survey, click on the topics below for more information.

Initial Interview

Weekly Activity Diary

Also, please view the Consent Form required by the University to see what benefits and tasks you should expect from this study. You will need to sign one of this form before your participation in the survey.

Program Download

If you are ready to install the REACT! program, please click the download page. If you prefer to install the program from a CD, please contact us. We will send a CD to you as soon as possible.

Second Phase: REACT! and TRACER (Under Construction)

* This research has been reviewed administratively and classified as exempt research by UC Irvine Institutional Review Board Administration.