My client has been LEED Credit-mapped by another party. They had conducted an informal commute survey taking option 3. The survey questionnaire asked for which mode of transport the staff used for "most of the week (3-4 days)" and not 5 days in the week, therefore does not have a daily tally. They got a good response the last time (~75%) and had favorable results since the project is highly accessible to mass transport and located near major thoroughfares, but the client is not too keen on conducting a new survey given that the survey was done fairly recently, and feedback will not likely be as good.
Will the survey be sufficient? - it is able to clearly indicate how many are driving alone to work but there is no 'per day' tally. What other alternatives are there other than conducting a new survey?
Jason Franken
Sustainability ProfessionalLEEDuser Expert
608 thumbs up
June 2, 2010 - 9:53 am
Pablo, it's hard to say without seeing a copy of the survey language, but it doesn't seem like this survey meets the required SCAQMD standards. It sounds like the survey that your client distributed asked respondents to summarize their commuting habits for a 3-4 day period. The language should not ask the respondent how they "usually" get to work or request details on their "typical" or "average" commuting habits; the survey must clearly request how the respondent actually commuted to work each day for a specific, consecutive 5-day period. I'd recommend that you take a look at the sample survey in the Documentation Toolkit section of SSc4 to get an idea of the compliant format. Then, if the client agrees, you should conduct a new survey to meet the credit requirements. Be up-front with the building occupants; explain what LEED certification means and why it's important to the building owner/operator and acknowledge that the first survey didn't collect all of the required information. You mentioned that they had a very good response rate the first time; if you like, rather than distributing the survey to the entire building population, you may use Approach 2 (described on pp. 28-29 of the Reference Guide) and survey a randomly-selected, statistically representative sample of the building population. If you get a response rate better than 80%, you can extrapolate the survey results to the entire building population. This approach may reduce the sting of having to do the survey over again.
Avkash Patel
40 thumbs up
June 7, 2010 - 12:53 pm
Is the sample survey in the Document Toolkit SCAQMD Rule 2202 compliant? If so, would it be alright to just customize it a bit and have my employees fill it out?
Also, I am working on a library project and libraries have many transient visitors and volunteers. Would I just survey the paid employees or do i have to include the volunteers.
Jason Franken
Sustainability ProfessionalLEEDuser Expert
608 thumbs up
June 7, 2010 - 1:06 pm
Yes, Avkash, the sample survey meets the credit requirements, so you can customize and use on your project. You can get some additional tips on creating/distributing the survey at http://www.leeduser.com/strategy/doing-alternative-commuting-transportat.... The best way to show credit compliance is to compile your survey results in an Excel sheet, very clearly showing the daily commuting for each mode, and making sure to adjust correctly for any carpoolers. For a library project, you only need to survey your regular occupants; this would definitely include your paid full-time employees and may include the volunteers depending on the length/timing of their shifts. If a volunteer is arriving between 6 am- 10 am and spending the entire day at the building, they should probably be included in the survey. If they are just coming in at random times throughout the day for shorter shifts, they can probably be excluded.