About Us

Since its inception in January of 1996, Ashton Associates has been using surveying as a planning tool to quantify and qualify the behavior and choice preferences of a population to the high degree of accuracy required by our clients and for meeting regulatory requirements, program monitoring, tracking and evaluation of various programs.

In 1998 when Harvard University needed to survey their employees and students to be in compliance with the MA Department of Environment Protection (DEP) regulatory requirement, they hired Ashton Associates to develop and conduct a statistically valid stratified random sample survey. The 1998 survey resulted in a 98 percent response rate. Since 1999, based on the usefulness of the results of that initial DEP survey and the client’s experience of the firm, Ashton Associates now monitors and evaluates the University’s CommuterChoice Program. Survey response rates at Harvard have been 100 percent since 2002.

Ashton Associates has expanded its relationship with Harvard further to include meeting the statistical and documentary requirements of three additional University-wide projects: The Town and Gown report, the Parking and Transportation Demand Management Plan (PTDM), and the Transit Pass/Flex Benefit Program.

Ashton Associates is a DBE consultant to the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT). Initially hired to conduct a three pronged study to identify opportunities for transit services that included: 1) the feasibility of limited fixed/flex route service in the area; 2) coordination of volunteer transportation; and 3) opportunities for sharing resources among existing transportation providers. Ashton Associates worked with The Mid-Coast Collaborative for Access to Transportation (MCC), which is a local grass roots organization “committed to ensuring that the needs and wishes of all citizens; including persons who have disabilities, long term illness, seniors, and others who lack the resources to own and operate an automobile; are taken into account when transportation systems planning or development occurs in the Greater Brunswick – Topsham area”. The end product was a report “Wheels to Work”.  Since this initial study, Ashton Associates has been consulting directly with the Maine Office of Passenger Transportation Services (OPS) on a variety of Federally mandated projects including The Americans With Disabilities Act and the Environmental Justice Act to integrate into their programs and activities considerations expressed in the FTA  Order and Policy Guidance.

Ashton Associates is the consultant to Yale University’s Sustainability Program in Hartford CT.  For the past three years Ashton Associates has conducted annual surveys primarily online, but also distributed in paper form to those employees who do not have regular internet access at work. The surveys ask faculty, staff, and graduate students about the commute modes they used to get to campus as well as a variety of other quantitative and qualitative questions.  The survey uses a stratified random-sample methodology with a 100 percent return rate.  In addition to providing direction for transportation initiatives, the survey results are used for tracking the success of Yale’s Sustainable Transportation Programs on an annual basis, and as a benchmark to measure against its peers.

For the past four consecutive years, Ashton Associates administered a parent involvement survey on contract with IFC Macro International (a national opinion research firm located in Maryland) for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Special Education Planning & Policy Development Unit to be compliant with the Federal Government’s State Performance Plan.  Each year 45,000 paper surveys were distributed by bulk mail and with a return reply to Ashton Associates. The return rate for this double sided survey in three different languages was an unprecedented 17 percent for bulk mail. The project is a part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA-2004) which requires states to develop a six-year strategic State Performance Plan that evaluates each state’s efforts to implement the requirements and purposes of IDEA.  As part of the Massachusetts State Performance Plan, the Massachusetts Department of Education is currently implementing a system to collect, analyze, and report data for Indicator #8: Parental Involvement. This Indicator requires states to report the “percent of parents with a child receiving special education services who report that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities.”

As part of a master plan Ashton Associates worked with C&S Consultants and Rochester University in New York, to develop a methodology, design, administer, distribute and analyze a 2008 Parking and Transportation Opinion Survey process to evaluate the facilities and land use implications of future University programs and to gather information concerning possible long term and short term solutions to expansion pressures on parking. Ashton Associates conducted a campus wide parking and transportation opinion survey that included both the Medical Center and the River Campus. A survey instrument was created to provide Rochester University with an initial baseline assessment of Rochester’s transportation and parking initiatives and how Rochester’s population commutes to campus. The survey was a combined online and paper survey with the majority of respondents receiving a paper survey at their home address. The survey was sent to 22,000 employees yielded a 23 percent return. All paper surveys were scanned and combined with the online survey results.

Currently Ashton Associates works with various companies and institutions that are required to survey their employees (and students where necessary) for the City of Cambridge Parking and Transportation Demand Management (PTDM) Ordinance. In addition Ashton Associates has been conducting surveys since 1998 for a variety of companies and institutions to be in compliance the Massachusetts Rideshare Regulation.