VISTA Information for survey participants

The survey is being conducted by The Social Research Centre on behalf of the Department of Transport and Planning.

The purpose of this survey is to collect essential information on the day-to-day travel and activities of people living in Victoria: how, where, why and when people travel.

The survey results will provide a reliable picture of travel patterns occurring in different areas – information that will be used to make planning decisions about roads, public transport and other facilities in and around your local community.

We first ask you to complete some questions about your household and all of the people who live there. We then ask everyone aged 5 and over to provide information about their travel and activities on a specific travel day.

For each trip, we ask where and when you travelled, how you got there and the purpose of the trip. This can be travel for any reason, such as work, education, shopping, social or recreational activities, buying a coffee, going to a playground, or even just heading out for a walk. When household members travel together, the shared trips will automatically appear in each person’s travel section.

To give the best possible picture of travel, we encourage each person to fill in their own travel section. Where possible, each person should report their own trips, as this gives the most accurate picture of their day. If needed, you can also enter travel on behalf of another household member – children will usually need an adult's help.

We know that different people travel in different ways. To get a good picture of the travel by people in your area, the survey needs to get answers from all types of people and households.

This is why, in addition to asking about your travel, we also ask questions about your age, gender, occupation and income to make sure we have included all types of people. These answers are then combined with those from all other households in the survey to give a complete picture of the day-to-day travel and activities of all people in the community.

The results from our survey will also be compared with the results from the Census to ensure that our survey respondents are representative of the broader population.

We realise that it would be very difficult for 'professional drivers' (those employed to move goods or people) to write down all the travel they make over a whole day and we don't expect them to do so.

Instead, we ask that they record only their personal travel – including trips from home to work and back again. However, if you are not a 'professional driver', but sometimes travel as part of your work then we ask that you record all travel you do as part of your work.

The VISTA team respects the privacy of individuals. All information obtained through the survey will be treated in the strictest confidence and only analysed in combination with many other households from your municipality and the wider study area.

No data that allows the identification of survey participants will be released, and no address or contact information from this project will be stored by the Department of Transport and Planning. If you have agreed to participate in other transport-related research, your details are kept in a separate database and are disconnected from your VISTA answers.

DTP use an authorised third-party service provider, The Social Research Centre, who assist us by performing functions or activities on our behalf.

Deidentified aggregated data will be made available online via Transport Victoria Open Data portal(opens in a new window) in combination with many other households from your municipality and the wider study area. No data that allows the identification of participants will be released, including any address or contact information collected for this study.

For information about how we handle the information we collect about you, please refer to our Privacy Policy. You also have a right to access any personal information we hold and may ask us to update or correct your personal information.

Each month, The Social Research Centre invite a small number of Life in Australia™ households on behalf of the Department of Transport and Planning to take part in VISTA. Households are invited to this VISTA survey only once a year, so your involvement now is especially valuable.

Previously, a random sample of households was selected from up-to-date listings of street addresses in your area. If you were contacted prior to September 2026, you (personally) were not selected – your address was.

If you were contacted prior to September 2026 and would like to get more information, please contact the Department of Transport and Planning’s VISTA team on vista@transport.vic.gov.au.

We are interested in understanding the travel behaviour of everyone selected to take part in the survey. While some people will make a lot of trips, it is just as important for us to know about those who don't travel much, or at all.

The survey is interested in all types of transport – cars, buses, trains, trams, planes, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles and walking.

So, on your travel day, it does not matter whether:

• you do not go anywhere at all
• you only leave the house once or twice, or
• you make lots of trips.

Please record what actually happened on your travel day, even if this is different from your normal daily routine.

If you have any questions or problems with the survey, call the The Social Research Centre’s VISTA team on 1800 023 040 (free call) or email LifeInAus@srcentre.com.au.

You can also contact the Department of Transport and Planning’s VISTA team on vista@transport.vic.gov.au.