COST OF ROAD TRAFFIC SURVEY (Hansard, 14 February 1962)

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM)
My Lords, the total cost of the whole survey is estimated at £425,000. The total cost of the home interview part of the survey is estimated 463 at £144,000, of which £65,000 is attributable to the actual interviewing and £36,500 to the coding and first stage analysis of the information. The remaining £42,500 is for the drawing of samples and for the preparation of zone plans and a coding index, which are also required for other parts of the survey. On this basis the average cost of the actual interviewing is 26s. per household or about 9s. per person. The average cost of first stage analysis is 14s. 7d. per household or 5s. per person. These figures include expenses and overheads.
It is not possible to make any useful comparison with the costs of recent surveys carried out by the Social Survey Division of the Central Office of Information. The average cost per interview of these surveys varies widely according to the survey technique employed, the number and complexity of the questions asked, and whether the sample is spread over a wide area or concentrated in a more limited one.

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Am I correct in thinking that, of the total of £425,000, he has left about £300,000 completely unaccounted for? Could the noble Lord explain where that £300,000, which he described as being outside the scope of the survey, is going to?

§ LORD CHESHAM
Yes, my Lords, I could do that and, indeed, I probably would have done had it been the information for which the noble Lord asked in his Question. But I feel, since his Question related to the home inter view section of the survey, the £300,000 really ought to be the subject of another Question and does not really arise on this one.

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, with all due respect, was not the information I asked for the cost per interview of this survey in total? As I understand it, the noble Lord has sloughed off £300,000 by saying that it was not part of the cost of interview or the processing of the data.

§ LORD CHESHAM
Yes, my Lords; I was quite aware of what the noble Lord had asked and I thought I gave him a quite clear and unequivocal 464 Answer—namely, the cost of the inter view. The noble Lord did not ask about anything else. However, I do not want to be unfriendly about this, and may I, in order to help him—although I do not propose to go into any more detail about it—draw his attention to the fact that there are eight different channels of collection of in formation of which the home interview is one. I can be quite brief. We start with home interviews. Then we have interviews of goods vehicle operators; roadside interviews at the boundaries of the survey areas; roadside interviews at the Thames crossings; a study of bus and coach journeys; a study of taxi journeys; a study of journey times and a study of volume counts. Those are all part of it.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he could put in the Library—perhaps we have already been supplied with this—a copy of the questionnaire which is being addressed to all these householders so that we ourselves might have some chance of appraising the value of this?

§ LORD CHESHAM
My Lords, I will certainly consider doing what the noble Earl asks. It also occurs to me that perhaps I ought to put his name on the list of interviewees.

§ THE EARL OF SWINTON
Do I get the £300,000 if I join the panel?

§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAM
No; 14s. 7d.!

§ LORD CHESHAM
My Lords, I am afraid the noble Earl may expect no better result than the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, had last week.