Schoenduwe, R., Mueller, M.G., Peters, A. and Lanzendorf, M. (2015) ‘Analysing mobility biographies with the life course calendar: a retrospective survey methodology for longitudinal data collection’, Journal of Transport Geography, 42, pp. 98–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2014.12.001.

Schoenduwe and colleagues turn mobility biography into a practical retrospective instrument through the life course calendar, a year-by-question grid that aligns spatial context, transport decisions and biographical events. Tested with 646 respondents, the method retrieves relocations, workplace changes and car acquisitions more reliably than fine-grained travel behaviour, demonstrating both the promise and the limits of retrospective longitudinal data. Its conceptual strength lies in using temporal adjacency as evidence: changes in residence, employment, household structure and mobility can be read together rather than as unrelated variables. The authors remain cautious about causal ordering when several events occur within the same year, an important warning against false precision. Methodologically, the calendar offers a disciplined middle ground between expensive panel studies and free-form memory. It connects transport research to event-history methods by making the life course simultaneously narratable, comparable and structurally analysable.