Everything you need to run a transportation research survey.
From survey design to data export, TIPS gives transportation agencies and businesses a purpose-built platform — with map-based question types you won't find in general-purpose survey tools.
Design surveys with the questions transportation research actually needs.
Mix standard question types with TIPS's signature map-based inputs to capture not just opinions, but the routes and trips behind them.
Standard question types
Checkbox, radio, select, short and long text, numeric range, email, and ZIP inputs — the building blocks of every survey, with validation built in.
Route Display questions
Show a fixed route on a map alongside an optional feedback box. Ask how likely riders would take a proposed bus route, or rate an existing one.
Route Selector questions
Show multiple preset routes on a single map and let respondents pick the one they'd actually take. Ideal for testing alternative alignments.
Route Creator questions
Let respondents draw their own routes within a bounded map. Cap the number of routes per respondent, name them, and edit before submitting.
Route Ranker questions
Present 2–10 preset routes on one map and have respondents drag-and-drop them into ranked preference order. Capture nuance the simpler picker can't.
Map Boundaries & jurisdiction lookup
Constrain map questions to a custom polygon, or pull a U.S. state, county, or place boundary straight from the Census TIGER/Line catalog.
Start from a proven template, not a blank page.
New to TIPS, or just short on time? Skip the blank canvas. Pick a transportation-specific template — rider satisfaction, microtransit demand, ADA paratransit, commuter mode-choice, or route realignment — and you have a complete, ready-to-edit survey in one click.
Written for transit research
Every template is built around a real transportation use case, with questions and answer choices a planner would actually field — not generic survey filler.
One click to a working survey
Choose a template and TIPS creates a full survey in your account — questions, options, and all. It starts inactive, so nothing goes live until you say so.
Yours to customize
A template is a starting point, not a straitjacket. Reword questions, add or remove them, drop in your branding and map questions, then translate it into any language.
Preview before you commit
See every question in a template before you use it, so you pick the right starting point for your study the first time.
Jump-start time-to-value
Go from sign-up to a fieldable draft in minutes. Ideal for agencies running their first study or standing up a recurring program quickly.
A growing library
We add new transportation templates over time, so there's always a fresh, best-practice starting point for your next survey.
Reach the right travelers — by email or by QR code.
Upload a list of Travelers and TIPS will email each one a unique survey link. Or post QR codes at stations, stops, vehicles, and events to capture in-the-moment responses where decisions are being made.
- QR codes for any survey — print, post, or embed wherever Travelers are
- Per-Traveler email invitations with unique, click-tracked links (paid plans)
- Header-aware Mailing List CSV import — column order doesn't matter
- Send Preview Emails to stakeholders before launch (signed, no login required)
- Pair with your own mail platform: external-email links still attribute responses
- Smart recipient bucketing — never accidentally re-spam completed respondents
- Per-Client email opt-out, honored across every survey you run
Responses you can defend in a planning meeting.
Public input only counts when it stands up to scrutiny. TIPS includes the safeguards that turn raw responses into evidence.
Email verification
Email-link respondents are validated at submission. QR-code respondents receive a verification email to confirm their address.
Duplicate prevention
Device-level cookies and server-side checks on survey + email keep the same person from skewing your numbers.
Resume after disconnect
Survey state saves after every page. If a respondent loses connection, they pick up exactly where they left off.
Profile verification
When a returning Traveler is recognized, an Information Verification step confirms their details before they take the survey.
Meet every traveler in their own language.
Offer a single survey in as many languages as your community needs — and keep every response in one unified dataset. Built for the Title VI and limited-English-proficiency (LEP) obligations that public engagement demands.
One survey, many languages
Add the languages you need to any survey. Travelers answer in theirs; you analyze one combined dataset — your reports and cross-tabs never fragment by language.
Traveler language switcher
Respondents pick their language right on the survey, and TIPS auto-detects a sensible default from their browser. Right-to-left scripts like Arabic render correctly.
AI-assisted translation
One click drafts every field with machine translation, then you review and refine before launch — so you control every public-facing word, with a fraction of the effort.
Translated end-to-end
Not just the questions — invitation emails, the pre-survey profile step, on-map controls, and the printable survey all render in the traveler's chosen language.
Title VI & LEP ready
Demonstrate meaningful access for limited-English-proficiency populations — a frequent requirement in federally funded transportation engagement.
Print in any language
Generate a paper-ready version of the survey in any configured language for in-person or mail-back collection where devices aren't an option.
From raw responses to board-ready insight.
Go beyond counts. Map where your respondents are, slice results by the segments that matter for equity, and hand decision-makers a polished report — without exporting to another tool first.
Respondent-density heatmaps
See where your responses are actually coming from on an interactive map — surface coverage gaps and over-represented areas at a glance for sharper outreach.
Segment cross-tabs
Build cross-tabulations that break any question down by another — the backbone of Title VI equity analysis and demographic comparison.
Board-ready PDF reports
Export a clean, branded report — summaries, breakdowns, and maps — ready to drop into a board packet or public-meeting agenda.
Read it in TIPS, or take it with you.
Built-in reports give you a quick read on every survey. Full data export lets your team feed responses into the analytics or GIS workflow you already use.
Survey Reports
Per-survey dashboards summarize response counts, completion rates, and answer distributions for every question — including map-based ones — with charts ready for review meetings.
Data Export
Export complete response data for outside analysis. Route Creator responses export as geometry your GIS tools can consume directly.
Your surveys and your respondents — always yours to move.
Archive a finished survey, clone a proven design for a new project, or hand a Traveler list off to your analytics team. TIPS doesn't lock your work inside the platform.
Survey JSON export
Export any survey definition — questions, options, routes, and map boundaries — as a portable JSON file. Archive it, version-control it, or move it between TIPS accounts.
Survey JSON import
Drop a JSON file in and TIPS rebuilds the survey for your account — materializing referenced routes and boundaries into your reusable libraries automatically.
Survey Copy
Deep-copy any survey — metadata, fields, options, and routes — to a new draft in a single click. The right way to start the next round of research.
Traveler Profile CSV export
Export the filtered Traveler view you're looking at — or every profile — with optional mailing-list memberships included. CSV-ready for your CRM or analytics stack.
Survey Preview
Walk through any survey end-to-end in preview mode before launching — no DB writes, free page navigation, and a clear "Preview Mode" banner so test runs never pollute your data.
Print & PDF
Print any survey to a single continuous page — with rendered route maps and your branding — for paper distribution, archive, or PDF sharing.
Response history snapshots
Every response saves the exact question text it was answered against. Edit, rename, or remove questions later — historical responses still read correctly.
GIS-ready geometry
Route Creator and Route Ranker responses export with full waypoint geometry — load straight into your GIS tooling without conversion.
Pull your survey data into anything.
The TIPS Client API gives Professional and Enterprise plans a read-only, bearer-authenticated way to pull surveys, responses, Travelers, and mailing lists into your data warehouse, BI tool, or in-house dashboard.
- Read-only v1 endpoints for surveys, responses, Travelers, mailing lists, and usage
- Per-key bearer tokens — mint, label, IP-restrict, and revoke from the portal
- Cursor-based pagination — stable under live writes, no duplicates, no misses
- Per-key rate limits with live remaining-quota headers on every response
- Built for AI workflows — endpoint reference at /learn/using-the-tips-api
Available on Professional and Enterprise tiers. Trial and entry plans can use full CSV and JSON exports from the portal.
Example: pull recent responses
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer tips_..." \
"https://travelerips.com/api/v1/responses?surveyId=42&since=2026-01-01"Returns a paginated JSON envelope with verified-vs-anonymous flagging, per-question answers, and snapshot question text — ready to feed into Power BI, Tableau, Looker, a Jupyter notebook, or an LLM agent.
Plans that scale with your research program.
Every tier includes the Survey Builder, all question types (including the four map-based ones), QR-code distribution, data export, and Survey Reports. Professional and Enterprise tiers add the read-only Client API. Pick the volume that matches your program.
Try the full Survey Builder with no card required.
- Up to 5 surveys
- Up to 500 completions / month
- Up to 500 Traveler Profiles
- QR codes for any survey
- Up to 2 account users
- 14-day trial — no card required
For ongoing research programs.
- Up to 10 surveys
- Up to 20,000 completions / month
- Up to 20,000 Traveler Profiles
- QR codes for any survey
- Up to 5 account users
- 1-month data retention after cancel
For outreach based research programs.
- Up to 15 surveys
- Up to 50,000 completions / month
- Up to 10,000 Traveler Profiles
- Up to 50,000 invitation emails / month
- QR codes for any survey
- Up to 10 account users
- Read-only Client API access
- 1-month data retention after cancel
For larger agencies and multi-program teams.
- Up to 20 surveys
- Up to 400,000 completions / month
- Up to 20,000 Traveler Profiles
- Up to 400,000 invitation emails / month
- QR codes for any survey
- Up to 20 account users
- Read-only Client API access
- 2-month data retention after cancel
Need a side-by-side comparison? See the full table on the Subscribe page.
The full TIPS platform — at every tier.
The tier cards above set the volume limits. The capabilities below come with every plan, including the free trial.
Survey design
- Standard question types — text, numeric, email, ZIP, select, radio, checkbox, and more
- 4 map-based question types — Route Display, Selector, Creator, and Ranker
- Reusable Map Boundaries + TIGER/Line jurisdiction lookup
- Reusable Client Route library — draw once, use across surveys
- Multi-page surveys with optional pre-survey Profile step (per-field toggles)
- Survey JSON export / import, deep Copy, Preview, and Print to PDF
Distribution
- QR codes for any survey — for stations, vehicles, events, or printed materials
- Per-Traveler email invitations with unique, click-tracked links (paid plans)
- Async send queue — 50,000-recipient batches without timing out the page
- External-email links pair with your own mail tool while preserving attribution
- Header-aware Mailing List CSV import — column order doesn't matter
- Per-Client email opt-out, honored across every survey you run
Data quality & reporting
- Email verification at submission for invitation-link responses
- Post-completion verification email for QR-code responses
- Duplicate-completion prevention (device cookie + server-side check)
- Resume-after-disconnect — survey state saves after every page
- Per-survey dashboards with route geometry aggregates and per-response drill-down
- Question-text snapshotting — historical responses stay readable after edits
- Traveler Profile CSV export (filtered view or all profiles, with mailing-list memberships)
- Real-time Usage dashboard with projected overage cost against your plan limits
Branding & account
- Upload your logo — shown on Survey Invitations and survey pages
- Custom email and survey-intro boilerplate
- Insert your own Privacy Statement text directly into surveys
- Multiple owner-role users per account; invite teammates from the portal
- Passwordless login with trusted-device remember (no passwords to manage)
- Per-Client time-zone display so every timestamp reads in your local time
- One-click "Need Help" support bubble on every Portal page
- Stripe-managed billing, invoice history, and self-service plan changes
- Configurable data retention after cancellation — your data stays accessible during the grace period
Ready to see TIPS in action?
Start a free 14-day trial and build your first survey today — including map-based questions you can't get anywhere else.