Southern California Transportation Study

We want to learn how, when, where, and why people travel in and outside the region. We invite you to log your travel to help us understand regional transportation patterns. By participating, you help us plan for future transportation improvements that benefit our community.   

Your participation is essential to representing households like yours in regional transportation plans.   

Households were selected randomly by mailing address from Southern California to ensure a comprehensive representation of the community. 

This study is sponsored by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), with additional support from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro).  

RSG will collect and use certain personal information from your study: travel information, demographics, household composition, contact information, and computer settings. We will not disclose or share personal information we collect from you except as required by law or described in the project-specific documentation and our privacy policy.  

Please have only one household member complete the initial registration for the study. If your household opts to use the app, please have all household members download the app and use the participation code provided in our email. For the one-day study, please provide your entire household information either online or by phone.   

Registering for the study takes about 10 minutes. After registering, you’ll receive instructions on how to log your trips and complete the questionnaire. For households using the rMove smartphone app, logging trips takes about five to ten minutes per day over seven days. For households reporting trips online or by phone, it takes about ten minutes per household member for one day of reporting.   

Once all members of your household have reported their trips and completed their questionnaires, you will receive a gift card. Once your household is registered, all household members need to participate in the study to be eligible for gift cards. If your household participates using the rMove smartphone app, each participating adult will receive a gift card (e.g., a household with two adults receives two gift cards). Households that report their trips online or by phone will receive a single gift card per household.   

Participation is limited to selected households that received a mailed invitation to ensure the validity of the data collected.  

A trip is defined as any time you travel more than 100 feet and conduct an activity at a different address, including activities such as arriving at school or work, getting coffee on the way to work, walking to the bus stop, stopping for gas or recharging vehicle, walking your dog, or using a drive-through.  

Any amount of travel, even if you don’t make any trips, is valuable. Remember that short trips, such as walking the dog, count too.  

No problem! We encourage your participation regardless of whether your transportation habits during the study align with your routine.   

After you download rMove and sign up for the study, the app will log your trips for one week while you go about your daily life. Each day, you’ll be asked to complete a short daily questionnaire about your transportation habits as well as a trip diary about each trip you make.   

Before your assigned trip reporting start date, you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to download and activate the rMove app. Once installed and running properly, rMove will log your trips. Shortly after you complete a trip, rMove will generate a trip diary record, prompting you to provide details such as how and why you made the trip. You’ll also receive a few questions in the app each morning about the previous day’s trips. You can answer these questions at your convenience throughout the day, but please refrain from responding while driving for safety reasons!  

The rMove app allows for more detailed trip information collection than a traditional travel diary. For example, the app collects each trip path, which helps understand congestion and route choices. Additionally, respondents may find it easier to use rMove than remembering trip details. Rest assured all data collected on your smartphone is strictly confidential along with the information collected in the study. This study’s privacy policy is available online.       

Your responses, combined with those of other participants throughout Southern California, contribute to a comprehensive understanding of travel behaviors in your community and throughout Southern California. This collective insight assists transportation planners in assessing how changes to transportation infrastructure and policy impact factors such as commute time and accessibility to essential activities.  

We are committed to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and security of your personal information. Our Privacy Policy is intended to help you understand how we collect and safeguard your information. For more information, view the study’s full privacy documentation.   

Please check your email junk or spam folder in case the email was routed there. If you don’t find it, please contact us for further assistance.  

Understanding the diverse demographics of Southern California residents ensures that our study captures a true representation of the region’s population. Travel patterns often correlate with demographic factors and geographic locations where residents live or work. Demographic information provides valuable insights for future transportation planning and improvements.  

Children’s trips to and from school account for a significant portion of overall travel activity for household routines, including the travel patterns of their parents or caregivers, through school-related trips and the planning of other errands, such as grocery shopping. By understanding the timing and methods of children’s school commutes, transportation planners can better assess household travel behaviors and improve transportation planning to ensure the safety and efficiency of school-related trips.  

If you encounter issues with the rMove app trip recording, please try restarting your smartphone. Restarting typically resets your location settings and resolves tracking issues with the app.  

Unfortunately, once the initial sign-up questionnaire is complete, we cannot remove participating household members. Because this is a household-level transportation study, accurate trip data requires participation from all related adult household members. 

While the rMove app generates a trip diary record for every trip made, we understand that continuous tracking during work hours can be impractical. You can turn off the app tracking during these busy work hours and turn it back on during your normal personal trips. To turn off location settings, Go to Settings, find rMove within apps, and turn off location.   

If your household participates using the rMove smartphone app and you or someone in your household will be in town for at least one of your assigned trip reporting dates, we encourage you to participate in the week-long study. If you or someone in your household will be out of town or out of the state for the entire trip reporting period, please contact us to arrange for a new trip reporting period.  

Your trip diary records should populate when you open the rMove app. If you do not see any trip diary records to answer despite making trips, please restart your smartphone. If the issue persists after restarting your smartphone, please contact us for assistance.   

Please allow two to three weeks for gift card processing after you have completed the study.  

If you chose a digital gift card and haven’t received it, please check your email junk or spam folder. Please contact us for assistance if you are unable to locate your digital gift card.  If you chose a physical mailed card, please contact us for assistance with your mailing address. We will ensure it is sent to you promptly.    

Submit A Support Request  

Need assistance? Email us at help@SoCalTransportationStudy.com. 

Please include your participation access code if you know it.  

Call Toll-Free  

• 833-313-9555  
• Hours:  
  • Monday through Thursday: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. PST  
  • Friday: 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. PST  
• You may also leave a message with the best time and number for us to return your call.