MPO Will Check Traffic by Phone

The Nashville Metropolitan Planning Organization is backing off its travel time surveys and counting cars by phone instead.

After years of tracking how long it takes to commute into and out of Nashville along major corridors, the MPO took off 2008 and is greatly reducing the road tests in the future. The agency didn’t see enough change in the data to make many concrete conclusions. So starting in 2009, the MPO will spend its money on surveying by phone two-thousand commuters across a nine-county region every two years.

MPO director Michael Skipper says the surveys will capture behaviors and attitudes.

“Not only would we be asking how did you get to work yesterday. But we might also ask if transit were improved or if it would improved in x, y, z ways, what would the chance of you using it be.”

Skipper says the polling data will also be used by national organizations to rank traffic congestion and track transit behaviors around the country.