Shocking Habits: Methodological Issues in Analyzing Changing Personal Travel Behavior Over Time

This paper examines the methodological problem of analyzing changing personal travel behavior without available longitudinal intra-personal datasets. The findings of a trial retrospective survey conducted in Cape Town are discussed. In follow-up interviews, respondents did not report great uncertainty in their recollection of the amount of the time elapsed since changing behavior. The posited explanation is that the recalled behavior changes interrogated were associated with ‘life shocks.’ Consequently, the recollections of behavior changes—the details of which in themselves are unremarkable and would probably be forgotten quickly—are attached to salient events, and respondents therefore reported no major difficulty in recalling them in a retrospective survey.