The German Mobility Panel: – Lessons Learned from a Longitudinal Travel Behavior Survey over 30 Years

After 30 years, the German Mobility Panel ceased data collection in the summer of 2023, despite being considered a successful and benchmark-worthy survey about everyday travel. This article gives an overview of the survey’s central ideas, purpose, and design, thoughts about the usefulness and applicability of the data, and explains why the survey has been terminated. It ends up with the experiences made with the MOP. Lastly, a synthesis based on the lessons learned is used to derive recommendations that can help implement future longitudinal surveys.