Free tool for organizers
Mobility survey template for events
This template gathers 26 questions to find out how your audience arrived and left, in six blocks: how they arrived, who came by car, who shared a car and why not, how they went home, what they think of the information and access, and a minimal profile. Each question explains what it is for and which decision of the mobility plan it feeds. You can copy one question, one block or the whole survey.
It is for organisers and sustainability teams who want their own data instead of assumptions. With the answers you can calculate the modal split, distance, car occupancy, reasons for not sharing and arrival and departure times, and feed the parking spaces and emissions calculators.
Paste the questions into your survey tool (Google Forms, Typeform, your ticketing platform…).
How you arrived
Questions for all attendees. They are used to calculate the modal split, origin and arrival time.
1.How did you get to the event? Choose the mode you used for most of the journey.
Single answer
- By car, as the driver
- By car, as a passenger
- By motorbike
- By taxi or ride-hailing
- By regular bus
- By event shuttle or coach
- By train or commuter rail
- By metro or tram
- By bicycle or scooter
- On foot
- Other
What it is for: It gives the modal split, the base figure for the emissions and parking calculators. It also filters who answers the car block.
2.What is the postcode of the place you set off from to get to the event? If you came from outside Spain, give the country and city.
Open answer
What it is for: It lets you calculate the (straight-line) distance and see which areas your audience comes from, to decide where a coach, a shuttle or a carpooling campaign makes sense.
3.Did you combine several modes of transport to get here?
Single answer
- No, only that mode
- Yes, I parked and continued by public transport or shuttle
- Yes, I combined public transport with a bike or scooter
- Yes, another combination
What it is for: It detects park-and-ride and combined trips, which a single-mode question does not capture.
4.When did you arrive in the event area, relative to the start time?
Single answer
- More than 2 hours before
- Between 1 and 2 hours before
- Less than 1 hour before
- After the start
What it is for: It gives the arrival curve and the peak hour, which size access, staff and entry slots. Adapt the time bands to your door-opening schedule.
5.How many minutes did your whole journey take, from leaving your home or accommodation to the event gate?
Number
What it is for: It measures real journey time by mode and helps detect whether a mode is uncompetitive or whether there are tailbacks.
If you came by car
Show it only to those who chose «by car» (driver or passenger) in question 1.
6.How many people travelled in the car, including you?
Number
What it is for: It is the figure for calculating average car occupancy, which weighs on parking spaces and on emissions per person.
7.What type of vehicle was it?
Single answer
- Petrol
- Diesel
- Hybrid
- Electric
- Other or I don't know
What it is for: It lets you estimate what share of the cars are electric, a figure the emissions calculator treats separately from the combustion car.
8.Where did you park?
Single answer
- In the official event car park
- In a nearby public or private car park
- On the street
- I did not park: I was dropped off at the gate
- Other
What it is for: It shows how much demand the official car park absorbs and how much spills into the surroundings, which informs the spaces needed and the nuisance to neighbours.
9.How long did it take you to find a space after reaching the area?
Single answer
- Less than 5 minutes
- Between 5 and 15 minutes
- Between 15 and 30 minutes
- More than 30 minutes
- I did not have to look
What it is for: It measures parking friction. A long time points to too few spaces, poor signage or a poor distribution of entrances.
10.If you had not come by car, how would you have come?
Single answer
- By public transport
- By event shuttle or coach
- By taxi or ride-hailing
- Sharing a car with someone else
- I would not have come
- None of the options worked for me
What it is for: It identifies the demand you could shift to other modes and the demand that would be lost if you restrict the car.
If you shared a car, and if not, why
Show it to those who came by car. It feeds the measures to raise occupancy.
11.Who did you travel with in the car?
Single answer
- I travelled alone
- With family or a partner
- With friends or colleagues
- With people I met through a carpooling app or website
- With other people
What it is for: It separates the occupancy that already exists naturally from carpooling with strangers, which is what you can encourage with measures.
12.If you travelled alone or only with people you already knew, why did you not share the car with more people? Tick all the reasons that apply.
Multiple answers
- I did not know of any option to do so
- I did not know how to do it
- I do not trust travelling with people I do not know
- The schedules did not suit me
- My starting point or route did not match others'
- I was carrying luggage or equipment
- I was travelling with children or dependants
- I prefer my own car for comfort or independence
- The saving was not worth it
- Another reason
What it is for: It ranks the reasons for not sharing and decides which measure to target: information, trust, schedules or incentives.
13.If the carpooling system were built into ticket purchase, would you have used it?
Single answer
- Yes, definitely
- Probably yes
- I don't know
- Probably not
- No
What it is for: It estimates the willingness to share and helps decide whether it is worth offering a carpooling system at ticket sale.
14.What would encourage you to share a car? Tick everything that applies.
Multiple answers
- Free or priority parking
- A parking discount
- Faster entry or access
- Splitting the travel costs
- Seeing the profile and ratings of the driver
- Being able to choose who I travel with
- Flexible departure and return times
- Nothing would encourage me
- Something else
What it is for: It prioritises the incentives you will launch according to what the audience says it values.
How you went home
Questions for everyone. They design departure, the last transport and the pick-up points.
15.How did you go home from the event? Choose the mode you used for most of the journey.
Single answer
- By car, as the driver
- By car, as a passenger
- By motorbike
- By taxi or ride-hailing
- By regular bus
- By event shuttle or coach
- By train or commuter rail
- By metro or tram
- By bicycle or scooter
- On foot
- I did not go home the same day (I stayed near the venue)
- Other
What it is for: It compares the return with the outward trip and reveals whether a mode works badly on departure, for example if the last transport leaves too early.
16.When did you leave the venue, relative to the finishing time?
Single answer
- Before it ended
- In the first 30 minutes after the end
- Between 30 and 60 minutes after the end
- More than 60 minutes after the end
What it is for: It gives the departure curve and the peak hour, which size clearance and transport reinforcements. Adapt the bands to your event's real schedule.
17.How long did it take you to leave the car park or board your transport after leaving the venue?
Single answer
- Less than 15 minutes
- Between 15 and 30 minutes
- Between 30 and 60 minutes
- More than 60 minutes
What it is for: It measures perceived clearance time, the most frequent bottleneck. Compare it with the target you set.
18.Did you have any problems getting home? Tick everything that applies.
Multiple answers
- Queues to leave the car park
- The last transport left too early
- No taxis or ride-hailing available
- Not enough information on how to get home
- I could not find my car or the pick-up point
- None
- Other
What it is for: It ranks departure problems by frequency and decides where to act first.
Information and rating
It measures whether communication and access worked. The scales use 1 as the worst and 5 as the best rating.
19.Where did you see information on how to get to the event? Tick everything that applies.
Multiple answers
- On the event website
- In the ticket confirmation email
- On social media
- In the event app
- On signs along the way
- I did not see any information
- Other
What it is for: It shows which channels reach the audience and where to concentrate mobility communication.
20.Rate from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good) the advance information on how to get to the event.
Scale
What it is for: It measures whether advance communication was enough. A low score justifies strengthening it at ticket sale and in the week before.
21.Rate from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good) the signage and access to the event on the day you went.
Scale
What it is for: It assesses signage, parking and gates together, and serves as a reference for comparing editions.
22.Rate from 1 (very difficult) to 5 (very easy) getting home after the event.
Scale
What it is for: It sums up the departure experience. A low score points to clearance, last transport or pick-up.
23.What would you improve about arriving at and leaving the event?
Open answer
What it is for: It collects ideas and problems the closed questions do not anticipate. Read it all and group it by theme. Do not ask for personal data.
Profile
Only what is essential for segmentation. The less personal data you collect, the better.
24.How many people were in your group, including you?
Number
What it is for: It helps interpret car occupancy and the size of groups that travel together.
25.Was it your first time attending this event?
Single answer
- Yes
- No
What it is for: It separates those who did not know the area from repeat attendees, because they need different information.
26.Do you or anyone in your group have reduced mobility?
Single answer
- Yes
- No
- Prefer not to say
What it is for: It sizes the demand for accessibility in parking, routes and adapted transport.
How and when should you send the mobility survey?
A good option is to send the survey to all ticket buyers in the days after the event, while the memory is fresh, so that it can be answered in a few minutes on a phone. The onboard:earth guide recommends asking how people travelled, the distance and, for private vehicles, how many passengers were on board, either at the event itself or with a follow-up online survey.
Decide what you want to measure
Choose the indicators before preparing the survey: modal split, distance, occupancy, reasons for not sharing and peak hours. Remove questions you will not use.
Copy it into your tool
Paste the questions into Google Forms, Typeform or your ticketing platform's tool. Set the car block to show only to those who chose car.
Adapt the time bands
Change the arrival and departure time options to your real door and finishing times.
Send it by email to buyers
Send it in the days after the event to all buyers, with a single reminder. If you wish, add a QR code on site for live answers.
Complement with counts and sales data
Add volunteer counts at the entrances and parking and coach sales data to cross-check the answers.
Close and clean the data
Remove duplicate or inconsistent answers and review the open answers before sharing them.
How many responses do you need?
There is no magic number of responses: it depends on the precision you need and on how many groups you want to break the results into. The more subgroups you want to present separately (by area of origin or by mode), the more responses you need in each. As a practical criterion, look at the diversity of who responds, not only the quantity.
| Situation | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| You report by ticket type or area and some group has few responses | The results for that subgroup are fragile | Do not present that subgroup separately or merge it with a similar one |
| Those who respond are very similar to one another | The sample may be biased towards one type of audience | Compare the distribution of your responses with ticketing's (postcodes, ticket type) |
| Those most engaged respond the most | It may over-represent people who had a very good or very bad experience | Chase with a reminder and mention the bias when presenting results |
| A figure changes a lot if one answer changes | The result is unstable | Do not draw strong conclusions; cross-check with counts and sales data |
| The sample is small but representative | It is good for guidance, not for setting exact targets | Present ranges and state the number of responses |
Whatever happens, always publish the number of responses and the response rate next to each result, and say how the data were obtained. A result with a small base is useful if it is presented as what it is.
How do you analyse the answers and turn them into KPIs?
Each block of the survey becomes one or more indicators you can compare between editions and use in the calculators. This table links each indicator to its calculation and the questions that feed it.
| Indicator | How it is calculated | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Modal split on the way in | Percentage of responses by mode, grouping car driver and passenger | llegada-01 |
| Average and total distance | Straight-line distance between the origin postcode and the venue, using a distance calculator; average and sum | llegada-02 |
| Average car occupancy | People travelling by car ÷ estimated cars, weighting each response by 1 ÷ people in the car | coche-01 |
| Share who share with people they did not know | Responses «through an app or website» ÷ responses of those who came by car | compartir-01 |
| Reasons for not sharing | Ranking of reasons ticked by those who travelled alone or with acquaintances | compartir-02 |
| Willingness to share | Percentage of «Yes, definitely» and «Probably yes» | compartir-03 |
| Peak hour of arrival and departure | Distribution of responses by band | llegada-04, vuelta-02 |
| Perceived clearance time | Distribution of responses by time band | vuelta-03 |
| Satisfaction with information, access and journey home | Average of the scales and distribution of scores | valoracion-02 to valoracion-04 |
Once you have the modal split, average distance and occupancy, take them to the calculators. The share by car and occupancy give the number of spaces, and the modal split, distances and occupancy give the emissions of audience transport.
Free toolParking spaces calculatorSize the car park with the share by car and the occupancy you measured.Free toolAttendee transport emissions calculatorCalculate the audience transport CO₂ with the modal split, distances and occupancy from your survey.What personal data should you collect, and what not?
Collect only the data you will use. To study mobility you do not need anyone's name, email or address: the origin postcode and a few profile questions are enough. This is good data-minimisation practice, not legal advice.
- Postcode instead of address. It lets you estimate distances without identifying anyone. Avoid asking for the full address.
- No name or email in the same survey. If you offer a prize for responding, collect contact details in a separate form and do not link them to the answers.
- Minimal profile. Ask only what you will use for segmentation. That is why the template does not ask for age, gender or income. The question on reduced mobility may reveal health data: keep it optional (the template includes «Prefer not to say») and do not link it to any identifying data.
- Explain what the data is used for at the start of the survey and who will see it.
- Review open answers. They may contain names, number plates or other personal data: read them and remove them before sharing.
- Keep the data only as long as necessary and present aggregated results.
To know what data protection rules require in your specific case, consult your data protection officer or a legal adviser.
How do you word the questions so the data are useful?
A well-worded question produces a figure that can be compared between editions; a badly worded one produces noise. These are the rules the template follows.
- One idea per question. Avoid mixing mode and distance, or arrival and departure.
- Complete, mutually exclusive closed options, with «Other» at the end so no one is forced into an answer.
- Do not suggest the answer. Ask «how did you get here?» and not «did you come by sustainable transport?».
- Same time frame. Reference times to the start and end of the event so they are comparable.
- Filter questions. Show the car block only to those who travelled by car.
- Test before sending. Run it with a small group and check everyone understands each question the same way.
VIB3S
From the survey to real trip data with VIB3S
A survey measures what the audience remembers and declares. To complement it with data on trips actually made, we recommend VIB3S, a carpooling platform for events: attendees share a car with people going to the same event through a free app (iOS and Android) and a web widget, and the driver splits the real cost of the trip with them, meaning fuel and tolls. It complements public transport and shuttles.
For your event, VIB3S builds the community inside the app and a widget that plugs into your website, ticketing or emails with one line of code, ready on its side in under 24 hours. You receive the audience's geographic origin, arrival and departure time slots, the routes with most demand, average occupancy per vehicle, shared kilometres, cars avoided and the CO₂ calculated and validated on completed trips, data you can cross-check against the survey answers.
Frequently asked questions
Planning the mobility of an event?
Tell us the capacity, the venue and where your audience comes from. We'll show you where carpooling can fit.