Balancing Innovation and Continuity – Experiences with Survey Design Adaptations of the German Mobility Panel

The German Mobility Panel is one of the longest-lasting studies with a basically unchanged design in mobility behaviour research world-wide. As a result one central asset of this study is the provision of time series data. Nevertheless in repeated surveys, design changes are sometimes inevitable due to new research questions or external developments. Since 1994 the German Mobility Panel has seen only minor design adaptations. After nearly 20 years with a more or less unchanged design, declining participation rates by certain person groups and new survey methods have required fundamental changes in the survey design. This paper describes design changes to the German Mobility Panel in 2013 and analyses the first outcomes generated by the methodological changes.