PASTA project recruitment
strategy for longitudinal
survey
2014/2016
Target audience: general public
Introduction:................................................................................................................ 3
Objective: ................................................................................................................... 3
Visual identity ............................................................................................................. 3
Key messages ............................................................................................................ 4
Target audience/Stakeholder list ................................................................................ 4
Promotional activities ................................................................................................. 5
Social Media ..................................................................................................... 5
Events ............................................................................................................... 7
Regular e-updates..............................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
Pop-up bike centres .......................................................................................... 7
Street recruiters................................................................................................. 8
Media activity.............................................................................................................. 9
Focus Groups ............................................................................................................. 9
Own channels........................................................................................................... 17
Staff................................................................................................................. 17
Digital channels (Website / Intranet / Twitter).................................................. 17
Council paper .................................................................................................. 17
Screens in public spaces e.g. tube / medical centres / council buildings ........ 17
Cycling champions ................................................................................................... 17
Promotional materials ............................................................................................... 18
Postcards/brochures/poster ............................................................................ 18
Tee-shirts ........................................................................................................ 18
Recruitment video ........................................................................................... 18
Incentives ................................................................................................................. 19
T-shirts design voting and lottery .................................................................... 19
Free bike giveaway ......................................................................................... 19
Introduction:
This document outlines the strategy and chronology to recruit participants for
the longitudinal data collection campaign in the 7 case study cities. This
strategy will provide a guideline for achieving the recruitment target of 2000
participants in each city. Partners from each city may use other, dedicated,
tailor-made means to achieve their goal, add them to this document and
propose them for use in other cities.
Objective:
A common recruitment strategy is important in order to achieve:
 2000 participants in each city
 Ensure more evenly distributed participation across transport modes,
social groups etc., and thus to reduce bias that could hamper the
statistical analysis in task 3.5
 Ensure that people affected by the top-measure are included
 A common methodological description on the recruitment strategy for use
in all peer-reviewed papers building on the database.
Visual identity
A professional designer was contracted at the start of the project to create a visual
identity for the project to enable clear and easy recognition of the project. All
dissemination materials produced within the project will be designed in line with the
visual identity. All elements of the visual identity of the project together with a style
guide document were made available via the internal area.
For recruitment activities Local partners placed the project logo
together with the local city or organisational logo which is more
likely to be recognised and lends a level of legitimacy to the
requests made.
www.pastaproject.eu
3
Key messages
Due to the research nature of the project, messages had to be kept relatively neutral
during public recruitment to avoid a bias. However general key messages which are
used for the project are:
1. Europeans move too much without moving enough these days. Many rely on cars
even for the shortest of trips. Two thirds of the adult population in the European
Union do not reach recommended levels of activity (30 mins/day on most week
days).
2. This comes at a great cost to our health and the public purse, with physical
inactivity one of the leading risk factors for ill-health contributing to one million
deaths per year in the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region.
3. PASTA stands for Physical Activity Through Sustainable Transport Approaches,
and aims to connect transport and health by promoting active mobility (like
walking and cycling) in cities as an innovative way of integrating physical
activity into our daily travel routine.
Other facts & stats about physcial activity:
Target audience/Stakeholder list
Draw up a detailed list of all the relationships that need to be established and who is
responsible for developing this network. Include a list of tasks or the type of
involvement that is expected from advocacy groups (for specific transport modes) and
other actors (depending on the case-study at hand). These include:





Local biking associations
Bike shops
Related projects
General public
Local journalists
Promotional activities
Social Media
Six out of the seven case study cities in the PASTA project used social media
as a promotional tool. As an example, PASTA Barcelona has its own Twitter
and Facebook accounts (Fig 1&2). Both accounts have the same name:
PASTABCN, and a hashtag has been created for Twitter: #PASTABCN.
News related to mobility, urban environment, research and health are posted
weekly. Specifically in Twitter, recruitment messages (Tweets) are posted daily
or every two days. The Tweets are designed to recruit any kind of mobility
pattern, trying to avoid any bias to the active mobility patterns. All the standard
tweets are in 3 languages (Catalan, Spanish, English) (Table 1).
Figure 1. PASTA Barcelona Twitter account (@PASTABCN)
Figure 2. PASTA Barcelona Facebook page (PASTABCN)
www.pastaproject.eu
5
Table 1. Standard PASTA Barcelona Tweets – tailored according to audience
1. General 1
Do you live, work or study in #Barcelona? Older than 18? We want you!
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en @ISGLOBALorg @the_prbb @EUPASTA
2. General 2
We would like to improve #Barcelona’s mobility, are you interested? Join
#PASTABCN!
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en
@ISGLOBALorg
@the_prbb @EUPASTA
3. Public Transport
Do you travel mostly by public transport? #PASTABCN needs you!
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en
@ISGLOBALorg
@TMB_Barcelona
@the_prbb @EUPASTA
4. Motorized Transport
Do you travel mostly by #car in #Barcelona? #PASTABCN needs you!
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en @ISGLOBALorg @RACC @the_prbb
@EUPASTA
5. Bicycles
Do you travel mostly by #bicibcn (yours or @bicing)? We need you!
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en @ISGLOBALorg @the_prbb @EUPASTA
6. Pedestrians
Do
you
get
around #Barcelona mostly
on-foot? #PASTABCN needs
you!
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en @ISGLOBALorg @the_prbb @EUPASTA
Figure3. Tweet cloud of ideas
Events
As face-to-face communication is the most effective way
of communication, the PASTA cities identified local
events which could be used as recruitment opportunities
also using intensively the social media during those
specific days.
For example, Table 2 shows the events where PASTA
Barcelona has been until 29/05/2015.
PASTA Vienna
Events
Date
Open Day PRBB 2014
4/10/2014
Workshop
29/10/2015
Setmana de la ciència (stand)
¿
Moving Active Transportation to Higher Ground:
Opportunities for Accelerating the Assessment of Health
Impacts
13/04/2015, Washington, USA
Barcelona Citizen Science Day (NOVUM 2015)
16/04/2015
Festa de la Ciència (NOVUM 2015)
26/04/2015
Park(ing) Day 2015
18/09/2015
Open Day PRBB 2015
03/10/2015
Popular Bike Ride
11/10/2015
Pop-up bike centres
PASTA Oerebro held a series of pop-up bike workshops. People can have their bikes
checked-up / repaired and can sign up for the PASTA project survey:
www.pastaproject.eu
7
Street recruiters
PASTA Barcelona has contracted 6 recruiters to give information about PASTA,
give bookmarks and ask for email addresses in different sampling points in
Barcelona City. This recruitment strategy is planned to be done during the
month of October. More details in PASTABCN Recruiters Protocol. The
“targeted recruitment” specified in the protocol is not planned for the moment.
Specific permissions from the Districts of Barcelona city have been requested
for this strategy.
Media activity
Work with your communications department to compile a list of local/regional
media and reporters that can be contacted targeted at those writing on cycling,
transport and health. This includes at least newspapers, radio stations, TVstations, social media and websites.
Prepare (see annex 1) and send out press releases to the list of
reporters/journalists for publication on the day of opening in coordination with the
city officials and advocacy groups.
Organize a press conference together with the city highlighting the need to collect
objective data in a collaborative way and cities place among the others. Opening in
each city is announced on the PASTA portal website (with the city officials)
Egs below for a full list visit: http://pastaproject.eu/resources/press/
Title of publication
Date of publication
Title of the medium (e.g. name of the
newspaper/magazine, name of the website etc.)
PASTA Barcelona
29/10/2014
RNE (Spanish national radio)
PASTA Barcelona
27/10/2014
CREAL
PASTA Barcelona
28/10/2014
El periodico
PASTA Barcelona
28/10/2014
La vanguardia
PASTA Barcelona
28/10/2014
Ara
PASTA Barcelona
29/10/2014
Boletín de Salud Pública
Transport and Health
1/11/2014
DAPHNIA
Es necessiten voluntaris per al
projecte PASTA
The first European study on mobility
and health in cities continues with the
recruitment process
Laboratorios itinerantes/Laboratoris
itinerants
Informativos Telecinco: Estudio de
contaminación
Connexió Barcelona: Estudi sobre la
mobilitat i la salut
16/3/2015
8/4/2015
CREAL website
04/05/2015
El Periódico de Catalunya
06/05/2015
Telecinco
13/05/2015
Barcelona TV
www.pastaproject.eu
9
Focus Groups
As part of the PASTA project workshops were carried out with representatives both
from the city and associations.
The idea behind these workshop and interviews was to look more closely at the
link between promoting active mobility - like walking and cycling - and health in
towns and cities and explore examples of cooperation among diverse sectors and
city departments in charge for health, urban planning and transport.
These workshops or focus groups are
 A good way to find out opinion from a breadth of social actors. Example
guidelines for running a focus group can be found here.
 A way in to established relationships and engagement (not merely
awareness) from key individuals in the sector. As contacts can be used
through which to promote the project further.
Mailings
Many organisation already have a number of mailing lists to hand, these can be
identified as follows:
PASTA Barcelona sent emails to:
 CREAL mailing list (internal organisational mailing list)
 PRBB mailing list
 UPF Experimental Sciences Department mailing list (other organisational
mailing list)
 CREAL database volunteers (
 TAPAS Travel Survey volunteers who accepted to participate in future
studies (related projects)
 PASTA Barcelona Workshop attendees (like focus groups)
 Others
The majority of the emails sent out by the case study cities were written in the local
language.
MAIL 1: CREAL mailing list
Dear all,
We would like to invite you to take part in the European study “Physical Activity
through Sustainable Transport Approaches (PASTA)”
(http://www.pastaproject.eu/home/). The main objective of the PASTA project is to
improve mobility and health in cities. To achieve that aim, different modes of
transport used by citizens will be studied.
To take part in the PASTA project, you need to fill-out some online questionnaires.
To do so, please go to https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en and register
yourself. You will find all of the necessary information there, but in case you would
like more information or clarification, you can contact [email protected].
We will appreciate it a lot if you can forward this information to your friends,
colleagues and/or family members who live, work and/or study in Barcelona, and
encourage them to participate in the study to improve mobility and health in this
city.
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
MAIL 2: standard
PASTA Project Barcelona: @PASTABCN
Dear Sir or Madam,
We would like to invite you to take part in an important online study lead in
Barcelona by the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology – CREAL
(http://www.creal.cat/).
CREAL is a partner in the European study “Physical Activity through Sustainable
Transport Approaches (PASTA)” (http://www.pastaproject.eu/home/). The main
objective of the PASTA project is to improve mobility and health in cities. To
achieve that aim, different modes of transport used by citizens will be studied.
To take part in the PASTA project, you need to fill-out some online
questionnaires. To do so, please go to https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en
and register yourself. You will find all of the necessary information there, but in
case you would like more information or clarification, you can
www.pastaproject.eu
11
contact [email protected]
We will appreciate it a lot if you can forward this information to your friends,
colleagues and/or family members who live, work and/or study in Barcelona city,
and encourage them to participate in the study to improve mobility and health in
this city.
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
PASTA Barcelona Team
[email protected]
PASTABCN
Aquest projecte ha rebut finançament del Setè Programa Marc de la Unió Europea en investigació, desenvolupament i
demostració tecnològica en virtut d’acord de subvenció número 602624-2.
Este proyecto ha recibido financiación del Séptimo Programa Marco de la Unión Europea en investigación, desarrollo y
demostración tecnológica en virtud de acuerdo de subvención número 602624-2.
This project have received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological
development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602624-2.
MAIL 3: CREAL database volunteers email
PASTA Project Barcelona: @PASTABCN
Dear Sir or Madam,
We would like to thank you for registering yourself in the CREAL volunteers
database. Your participation is very important to develop our research projects and
improve the health of the population.
Currently, CREAL is a partner in the European study “Physical Activity through
Sustainable Transport Approaches (PASTA)”
(http://www.pastaproject.eu/home/), of which the main objective is to improve
mobility and health in cities. To achieve that aim, different modes of transport
used by citizens will be studied.
We would like to invite you to take part in the PASTA project by filling out some
online questionnaires. To do so, please go to
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en and register yourself. You will find
all of the necessary information there, but in case you would like more information
or clarification, you can contact [email protected]
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
Aquest projecte ha rebut finançament del Setè Programa Marc de la Unió Europea en investigació, desenvolupament i
demostració tecnològica en virtut d’acord de subvenció número 602624-2.
Este proyecto ha recibido financiación del Séptimo Programa Marco de la Unión Europea en investigación, desarrollo y
demostración tecnológica en virtud de acuerdo de subvención número 602624-2.
This project have received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological
development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602624-2.
MAIL 4: TAPAS Travel Survey volunteers database
PASTA Project Barcelona: @PASTABCN
Dear Sir or Madam,
We would like to thank you for having participated in our previous study TAPAS
Travel Survey. Your participation was very important for the project.
Currently, CREAL is a partner in the European study “Physical Activity through
Sustainable Transport Approaches (PASTA)”
(http://www.pastaproject.eu/home/), of which the main objective is to improve
mobility and health in cities. To achieve that aim, different modes of transport
used by citizens will be studied.
We would like to invite you to take part in the PASTA project by filling out some
online questionnaires. To do so, please go to
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en and register yourself. You will find
all of the necessary information there, but in case you would like more information
or clarification, you can contact [email protected].
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
Aquest projecte ha rebut finançament del Setè Programa Marc de la Unió Europea en investigació, desenvolupament i
demostració tecnològica en virtut d’acord de subvenció número 602624-2.
www.pastaproject.eu
13
Este proyecto ha recibido financiación del Séptimo Programa Marco de la Unión Europea en investigación, desarrollo y
demostración tecnológica en virtud de acuerdo de subvención número 602624-2.
This project have received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological
development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602624-2.
MAIL 5: Focus groups attendees/invited 1
ENGLISH
Dear name,
We would like to thank you for having participated or been interested in the
workshop and presentation of the PASTA project on 28th October, 2014. You will
receive the report of this event soon.
As you know, the PASTA project aims to improve mobility and health in
Barcelona and other European cities. We have now started the PASTA survey
and we welcome you to participate by registering yourself and/or sending on the
information to your organization or others that may be interested. To register
please click here: https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en. You will find
all of the necessary information there, but in case you would like more information
or clarification, you can contact [email protected]
We will also appreciate if you could make a wider dissemination within your
organization using the study posters available at:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6XDCycJP0qYc0NiSThuM3lpaW8&authuser=0 .
We would be happy to discuss further with you on how to increase participation.
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
PASTA Project Barcelona: @PASTABCN
Dear Sir or Madam,
We would like to invite you to take part in an important online study lead in
Barcelona by the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology – CREAL
(http://www.creal.cat/).
CREAL is a partner in the European study “Physical Activity through Sustainable
Transport Approaches (PASTA)” (http://www.pastaproject.eu/home/). The main
objective of the PASTA project is to improve mobility and health in cities. To
achieve that aim, different modes of transport used by citizens will be studied.
To take part in the PASTA project, you need to be older than 18 years and
live, work and/or study in Barcelona city and fill-out online questionnaires.
To do so, please go to https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en and register
yourself. You will receive an e-mail with a link to the first baseline questionnaire
(20-30 minutes) and every 13 days you will receive follow-up questionnaires (5-10
minutes). You will find all of the information in the link, but in case you would like
more information or clarification, you can contact [email protected].
Not only will you help the mobility and health of Barcelona, but you also
have the chance to win 1 of 5 lottery prizes of €100 cash every three months
and even free Bicing membership renewal (conditions apply). We will
appreciate it a lot if you can forward this information to your friends, colleagues
and/or family members who live, work and/or study in Barcelona, and encourage
them to participate in the study to improve mobility and health in this city.
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
PASTA Barcelona Team
[email protected]
PASTABCN
This project have received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological
development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602624-2.
AIL 7: Workshop attendees/invited 2
ENGLISH
Dear name,
We would like to thank you for having participated or been interested in the
workshop and presentation of the PASTA project on 28th October, 2014. You will
receive the report of this event soon.
As you know, the PASTA project aims to improve mobility and health in
Barcelona and other European cities. We have now started the PASTA survey
and we welcome you to participate by registering yourself and/or sending on the
information to your organization or others that may be interested. To register
please click
www.pastaproject.eu
15
here: https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en. You will find
all of the necessary information there, but in case you would like more information
or clarification, you can contact [email protected]
We will also appreciate if you could make a wider dissemination within your
organization using the study posters available at:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6XDCycJP0qYc0NiSThuM3lpaW8&authuser=0 .
We would be happy to discuss further with you on how to increase participation.
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
MAIL 8: People who gave us their email adress in Events-Street
PASTA Project Barcelona: @PASTABCN
Dear Sir or Madam,
We would like to thank you for giving us your email address during the
XXXXXXXXXXX. For that reason, we would like to invite you to participate in the
European study “Physical Activity through Sustainable Transport
Approaches (PASTA)” (http://www.pastaproject.eu/home/), study lead in Barcelona
by the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology – CREAL
(http://www.creal.cat/).
The main objective of PASTA project is to improve mobility and health in cities. To
achieve that aim, different modes of transport used by citizens will be studied using
online questionnaires. To participate, please go to
https://survey.pastaproject.eu/barcelona_en and register yourself. You will find
all of the necessary information there, but in case you would like more information
or clarification, you can contact [email protected]
Thank-you so much for your collaboration!
PASTA Barcelona Team
[email protected]
PASTABCN
Aquest projecte ha rebut finançament del Setè Programa Marc de la Unió Europea en investigació, desenvolupament i
demostració tecnològica en virtut d’acord de subvenció número 602624-2.
Este proyecto ha recibido financiación del Séptimo Programa Marco de la Unión Europea en investigación, desarrollo y
demostración tecnológica en virtud de acuerdo de subvención número 602624-2.
This project have received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological
development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602624-2.
Own channels
Staff
Take advatage of those signed up to the bike to work campaign, if this is in place
in your city.
Digital channels (Website / Intranet / Twitter)
Give prominence and provide updates via your city webpage and intranet. E.g.
include a countdown clock, number of people signed up or the target.
Council paper
Use your local paper to advertise and share updates on the projects.
Screens in public spaces e.g. tube / medical centres / council buildings
Towns and cities often have space or screens
in public spaces which they manage, take
advantage of these to promote the project.
PASTA London shared this at a screen
located near a major transport hub, the
Underground station in Stratford.
PASTA Roma screened the image and the
link on the screens in the cities metro network
e.g. on platforms where people are waiting.
Cycling champions
Identify key individuals who have an established (positive!)
reputation within you town/city to promote the project e.g.
Politicians - Mayor, local Councillors
celebrities – particularly those who have demonstrated an
interest in community development, cycling.
E.g. PASTA Rome recruited members of the Italian Rugby
team. PASTA London adds photos from time to time of
participants.
Participants in the survey can also use the event to give
raise their profile, and disseminate via their social media
channels using the aforementioned hashtag.
www.pastaproject.eu
17
Promotional materials
A wide range of promotional tools, both in digital and print medium were designed
in line with the visual identity.
Postcards/brochures/poster
A project postcard was developed
to promote the project at events,
opportunity-based and on demand
to attract stakeholders to visit the
project website to find out more
about the project.
It has been produced in the main
European and all project
languages: English, Italian,
German, Spanish, Swedish and Dutch
An editable electronic version will also be
available in the internal area for use by
partners for recruitment of participants.
Branded takeaways
PASTA Barcelona used the PASTA graphics a tee-shirt was designed with the
URL and Twitter handle on the back of the tee-shirt directing people to the website.
More info in the next section.
Recruitment video
A short 20 second
video was developed
using free video
software
(www.wideo.co)
This was used for
promotional purposes
via digital channels
e.g. social media,
websites and
mailings.
Incentives
T-shirts design voting and lottery
PASTA Barcelona created a voting in Twitter to make people choose between 2
PASTA t-shirt designs. The hashtag #PASTAtshirt was created for the campaign.
The voting took place 9-22 July. Ten t-shirts with the winner design were raffled the
23rd of July as an incentive.
Fig.3. Tweet both PASTA t-shirt designs
Fig.4. Tweet with the winning design
Free bike giveaway
In PASTA Rome, linked up with Tern.
Participants were entered for a draw for 25
folding bike Tern Link D8 model.
Lottery
PASTA Vienna, organized a lottery which takes place every three months, where
people who filled in questionnaires are entered for a prize draw. The chance of
winning increases with the number of questionnaires filled in.
www.pastaproject.eu
19
Winners are offered the opportunity to choose between a set of different vouchers
e.g.
● public transport tickets,
● cinema tickets,
● Sodexo vouchers (can be used in different shops)
● or they could also donate the worth of their prices to a non-profit organisation
(like SOS Children´s Village). In addition, one of our local partners
sponsored once 20 one-year subscription of a Bicycle Magazine.
Each winner receives a letter from the Viennese PASTA team and the vouchers
per mail. Within this letter we thank them for their participation and ask them to
upload information on their prizes on our PASTA Facebook page.
Recipients are generally very happy about their winnings, and some have helped
us to recruit further participants after they received their prizes.
Figure 1: Winning - Letter
Figure 2: Pictures we use to promote the next PASTA lottery on our Facebook page
Figure 3: A picture we received from one of
the lottery winners. With these vouchers
she would like to servise her bike.
Figure 5: Some PASTA winners invested the
money into food.
Figure 4: A picture a PASTA winner posted on
our Facebook page. She invested her vouchers
into a new bike helmet and is planning a lot of
bike journeys.
Figure 6: Another PASTA winner invested her
prize into a trendy skirt.
www.pastaproject.eu
21
PASTA Barcelona organizes every three months a draw for 5 lottery prizes of
100€. The chance of winning increases with the number of questionnaires filled out
the previous 3 months. The PASTA Barcelona participants receive an email one
week before announcing the draw, trying to increase the number of questionnaires
filled out. After the draw is done, each winner receives an email from the
Barcelona PASTA team and the vouchers per maila form to fill out asking personal
details (Name, Surname, ID, Bank account where to transfer the money and
signature). They are also asked to send a copy of their ID. Within the email we
thank them for their participation and encourage them to continue participating.
Recipients are generally very happy about their winnings.