Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA)
Information on this page
- What is VISTA?
- Information for survey participants
- How to access VISTA Online
- How to access VISTA reports
- Further information
What is VISTA?
The Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity (VISTA) is an ongoing survey of travel and activity.
The detailed picture of travel available from VISTA helps the government make better transport and land-use planning decisions.
The survey is conducted across Greater Melbourne, Geelong and some selected regional centres.
The current VISTA survey started in July 2012 and will end in July 2016. Data is collected across the year, to allow average daily travel behaviour to be described.
Randomly selected households are asked to complete the VISTA travel diary for a single specified day. By collecting all personal travel information - from walking the dog, through to a flight interstate - the results of VISTA enhance our understanding of complex travel interactions.
The survey is administered on behalf of the Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure by Ipsos Social Research Institute, in association with I-view, Sinclair Knight Merz and Symbolix.
VISTA surveys were also conducted in the 2007-08 and 2009-10 financial years. Summary data from these two earlier surveys can be accessed below.
Information for survey participants
Your participation in VISTA is greatly appreciated.
We need to get information from as many different households as possible to better understand the complexity of travel. We need to hear from you, whether you make a lot of trips or hardly travel at all.
Effective transport planning is a critical part of managing our cities and towns. Your completed survey, and other surveys from households from your area, helps us understand how, when and where people travel.
Key points about the survey data:
- all information collected is confidential
- survey results are grouped together to give an overview of travel across a region
- personal information is deleted before it is used for transport planning
- your name, address and contact information is not kept unless you have agree to take part in other transport-related research projects.
If you have any difficulties or concerns in filling in the survey, or would like to speak to the survey team about other ways of providing the information, please call 1800 816 337 (free call). Some frequently asked questions about VISTA are also answered on this web page.
VISTA survey forms
Copies of the VISTA questionnaire, and other materials provided to participating households, can be downloaded below.
The household form is normally printed as an A3 wrap-around. A travel diary booklet is provided for every person in the household. Additional booklets are available on request.
- Household Form (PDF, 75.6 KB, 4 pp.)
- Household Form (DOC, 3.5 MB, 4 pp.)
- Individual Travel Day Form ('VISTA travel diary') (PDF, 163.0 KB, 16 pp.)
- Individual Travel Day Form ('VISTA travel diary') (DOC, 4.8 MB, 17 pp.)
- 'Helpful hints' for completing the Travel Day Form (PDF, 294.6 KB, 4 pp.)
- 'Helpful hints' for completing the Travel Day Form (DOC, 300.5 KB, 5 pp.)
How to access VISTA Online
To help understand and improve our transport systems, we have made the survey data available to transport researchers, local councils and consultants working for the Victorian Government.
VISTA Online is a new analysis tool that allows summary tables of travel behaviour to be developed, using a variety of VISTA datasets.
Data from the 2007-08 survey, as well as the 2009-10 survey, is available through this tool. Data collected from the new survey will be automatically uploaded into VISTA Online.
Using VISTA Online will allow you to:
- access detailed travel and activity data without complex analysis software
- build tables and save them for future reference
- download data from the tables for analysis in standard spreadsheet packages
- generate an estimate of the sampling error for any table, giving an indication of data accuracy
- access the latest version of the VISTA datasets
- receive notification of new databases as they are published
- access unit record (de-identified) VISTA databases in comma separated value format.
An instruction guide for using VISTA Online can be downloaded below:
- VISTA Online User Guide (PDF, 6.7 MB, 29 pp.)
- VISTA Online User Guide (Word format) (DOC, 5.6 MB, 29 pp.)
Note: Confirmation emails sent as part of the VISTA Online registration process may be automatically redirected to your spam or junk mail folders. Contact the VISTA team at vista@transport.vic.gov.au with any other registration problems.
How to access VISTA reports
A selection of VISTA summary reports are available below. However more reports will be added over time.
Authors of conference or research papers profiling VISTA results are invited to submit papers for inclusion here by emailing vista@transport.vic.gov.au.
- Survey overview and top level transport statistics from Melbourne, Geelong and selected regional centres.
- Instructions for using the VISTA Online data analysis tool. A reference guide for creating custom VISTA analyses using SuperWeb2 software.
- Integrative Software for Dataflows in Continuous Travel Surveys. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Transport Survey Methods, Chile, November 2011.
- Spatial Modelling of Electric Vehicle Charging Demand and Impacts on Peak Household Electrical Load in Victoria, Australia. 2012 CSIRO research report. VISTA data used in modelling the location, time and duration of vehicle recharges.
- Movement of people and air pollutants: exposure assessment using dynamic population data. Paper presented at the 20th Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand Conference, Auckland 2011.
- Investigating links between transport disadvantage, social exclusion and well-being in Melbourne - Preliminary results. Research paper appearing in the Transport Policy Journal, July 2009.
Further information
For participants
If you have been selected to take part in VISTA, and you would like to speak to the survey team, please call 1800 816 337 (free call).
To access survey data
Other questions relating to VISTA data and reports can be emailed to the Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure (vista@transport.vic.gov.au).