Capturing travel behavior with a travel diary is time-consuming for the survey respondents and yet limited in terms of the gatherable information. This is because key determinants of people's travel behavior, such as individual norms or attitudes towards different means of transportation, are not captured. However, gathering these determinants in addition to a travel diary would go beyond the acceptable limits for the respondents in terms of the effort required to complete the survey. For this reason, the Travel Skeleton was developed: A survey approach for the integrated and efficient capture of people’s travel behavior and its key determinants.

The main idea behind the Travel Skeleton is the simplified survey of respondents' travel behavior by asking for the usual activities and travel choices. The time saved is used for additional question modules, capturing important determinants of travel behavior, such as attitudes towards different means of transportation. Depending on the objective of the application, different modules of the Travel Skeleton survey can be adapted, added, or removed.