The 2001 London Area Transport Survey aims to gather data on travel habits in London and surrounding areas for transport planning. Researchers are testing different ways to collect this data due to declining response rates, especially in big cities like London. Pilot surveys have been done to try out new travel diary formats and computer interviews. They also tested a validation survey to understand why some people don't respond to surveys and how this affects the results. The goal is to improve the accuracy of the survey data for better transport planning.