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Best questions for parent survey about transportation

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Adam Sabla

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Aug 20, 2025

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Here are some of the best questions for a parent survey about transportation, plus tips for crafting high-impact questions. With Specific, you can build a conversational survey in seconds—getting real, actionable answers in less time.

Best open-ended questions for parent survey about transportation

Open-ended questions invite parents to share their unique perspectives, ideas, and concerns. These are essential if you want true understanding—not just stats. Use open ends to uncover issues around school commutes, safety worries, or alternative solutions you might never have considered. Especially when data shows that 31% of parents worry about their child's safety during the commute and preferences vary widely, open-ended feedback provides crucial insights into real needs and experiences. [1]

  1. What is your child's usual routine for getting to and from school?

  2. Can you describe any recent challenges or frustrations you’ve experienced with your child’s transportation options?

  3. In your opinion, what could be improved about the current transportation situation for students?

  4. How do weather conditions or seasonal changes affect your child’s commute?

  5. Tell us about a time when transportation impacted your child’s school attendance.

  6. What factors are most important to you when choosing a mode of transportation for your child?

  7. How safe do you feel your child’s journey to and from school is? Please explain.

  8. Are there any transportation services or options you wish were available to your family?

  9. If your child takes the school bus, what has your experience been with bus reliability and scheduling?

  10. What creative or community-based solutions would you suggest to address transportation issues?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for parent survey about transportation

Single-select multiple-choice questions make it easy to quantify responses and spot trends quickly—especially when you need to understand how parents are commuting now. They lower the barrier for parents to get started, and can be a great first step before diving deeper with follow-ups. For example, a recent survey showed that 56% of parents drive their children to school, 35% rely on buses, and only 7% have their children walk—clear data you can only get from structured questions. [1]

Question: What is your child’s primary mode of transportation to school?

  • Family car

  • School bus

  • Walking

  • Bicycle

  • Public transit

  • Other

Question: How satisfied are you with your child’s current transportation to and from school?

  • Very satisfied

  • Somewhat satisfied

  • Neutral

  • Somewhat dissatisfied

  • Very dissatisfied

Question: What is your biggest concern regarding your child’s commute?

  • Traffic and road safety

  • Unreliable transportation

  • Commute time

  • Weather conditions

  • Other

When to follow up with "why"? When someone selects a structured choice, always consider asking "why?" after. For example, if a parent chooses “Unreliable transportation” as their biggest concern, following up with “Can you share what makes transportation unreliable for your child?” draws out the deeper story behind the stats.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always offer “Other” when your provided options might not capture every parent’s situation. Follow-up questions after “Other” responses can reveal new patterns or needs you may have missed—critical for innovation and inclusion.

NPS-style question: measuring overall sentiment

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple but powerful way to measure overall sentiment, even in parent surveys about transportation. It asks: “How likely are you to recommend your child’s transportation service to other parents?” This works well because parents’ recommendations point to trust and satisfaction—a crucial consideration, especially with the rise of new solutions like HopSkipDrive for families facing bus shortages. [3] To save time, you can instantly generate an NPS survey for parents about transportation.

The power of follow-up questions

Smart, automated follow-up questions are the backbone of conversational surveys. We dig deeper, asking for clarification or a “why” whenever an answer is vague or seems important. This means if a parent mentions “safety issues,” our AI can immediately ask, “What specific safety issues concern you most?” instead of just logging the vague statement.

Specific’s AI-driven surveys automate this process—saving massive time compared to manual email follow-ups and increasing the useful context you collect. The experience feels like a real conversation, not just a form. See more about automatic AI follow-up questions and how we make this work.

  • Parent: “I’m worried about drivers on our street.”

  • AI follow-up: “Are you concerned more about speeding, distracted driving, or something else?”

How many followups to ask? For most surveys, 2-3 follow-up questions are enough to clarify intent and details. Of course, you can set a maximum—Specific lets you control this, and automatically moves on once you have the info you need, keeping the survey quick and smooth.

This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of static forms, your survey adapts and feels like real dialogue with parents.

AI response analysis: Even with pages of unstructured parent feedback, AI makes it easy to summarize and analyze responses. See the simple process in our guide to AI-powered survey analysis—so you can turn parent stories into actionable insights in minutes.

Automated follow-up questions are new for most—give it a try and see how much more you can discover by letting AI do the work of keeping the conversation going.

How to use ChatGPT or GPT-4 to generate parent transportation survey questions

If you want to brainstorm survey questions using AI, try these proven prompt frameworks:

Start by asking for a broad set of ideas:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Parent survey about Transportation.

Remember: AI always performs better when you provide more detail. You’ll get more relevant, thoughtful questions if you explain who you are, your goals, and your specific needs:

We are a group of public school administrators developing a transportation survey for parents to better understand their needs and concerns. The survey will be used for planning safer, more reliable school commutes. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that would be appropriate for this context.

Once you have your list of questions, get organized with:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Choose which themes or categories to explore further, then go deeper with:

Generate 10 questions for categories “Safety Concerns” and “Alternative Transportation.”

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey is designed to feel like a natural chat—one question at a time, with relevant follow-ups based on each answer. Instead of dumping a page-long form in front of parents and hoping for thoughtful responses, you create an experience that adapts and clarifies in real time. This approach is proven to increase completion rates and unlocks richer stories about real-world issues facing families—like why over half of parents in cities such as Philadelphia believe more reliable transportation would reduce school absences. [2]

Here’s a quick comparison:

Manual Survey

AI-Generated Conversational Survey

Static questions

Adaptive, dynamic questions

Manual follow-ups (if any)

Automated, context-aware follow-ups

Harder to analyze qualitative data

Instant summaries and analysis via AI

Time-consuming setup

Generated in seconds with prompt or template

Impersonal, form-like

Feels like a real chat—higher engagement

Why use AI for parent surveys? When you generate a conversational survey with AI, you get more honest, meaningful input, save hours in setup and analysis, and can easily customize or iterate as needs change. Try out an AI survey example or test drive our specialized AI survey editor to see how natural the process feels.

Specific offers a best-in-class experience for conversational surveys. Whether you want to ask about safe commutes, alternative transportation, or general satisfaction, your feedback process becomes engaging for both you and your parent community. Curious to learn more? Check out our step-by-step guide to creating a survey for parents—it’s detailed, actionable, and easy to follow.

See this transportation survey example now

Start your parent transportation survey today and experience how a conversational survey powered by AI unlocks richer, more nuanced feedback—helping you build safer, smarter, and more responsive solutions for your school community.

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Sources

  1. C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. Parent views on traffic, hazards, and student safety

  2. Axios. Philadelphia school bus driver shortage and transportation concerns

  3. AP News. Startups contracting with school districts to fill transportation gaps

Adam Sabla - Image Avatar

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.

Adam Sabla

Adam Sabla is an entrepreneur with experience building startups that serve over 1M customers, including Disney, Netflix, and BBC, with a strong passion for automation.