Towards understanding travel in the digital age: A cross-dimensional one-week diary of individual virtual and physical activities in Indonesian cities

•The process and preliminary analysis of the one-week virtual, physical, and app activities survey are presented.•Combining online and offline survey platforms, providing incentives, and maintaining close communication with respondents contribute to the survey’s success.•Integrating information on virtual and physical activities into conventional time-use data provides a better understanding of daily activity participation.•App usage by senior workers or those who reside in Jakarta tends to create multiple effects, either creation or avoidance of travel. The increasing prevalence of information and communication technology (ICT), particularly through smartphones, has profoundly shaped individuals’ daily schedules, making it an integral part of travel behaviour research. However, comprehensive data on daily virtual and physical activities as well as app usage behaviour remains limited. This paper describes the implementation of a survey to capture cross-dimensional weekly virtual-physical activities diary, including the details of travel, in-home, and out-of-home behaviour, extended smartphone app usage behaviour, and the psychological and perceived built environment factors affecting them. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to expand the panel time-use survey to comprehensively capture daily smartphone app usage, the impact of such usage on travel, and their underlying behaviour (motivations and planned behaviour) in developing countries. Furthermore, it aims to demonstrate the possible usefulness of this dataset in assessing the impact of ICT on travel. The survey was deployed in Jakarta, Bandung, Denpasar, and Cianjur in Indonesia from May 2022 to January 2023. The protocol, mechanism, location, instrument, survey process, and preliminary data are described in the paper. Out of all respondents approached in all cities, 1,193 respondents over 18 years of age, or only 39 %, participated in the study. Respondents reported engaging in 23–32 activities daily and multitasking with average of 2–3 activities. The data collection process for this survey highlighted the importance of utilising both paper-and-pencil surveys and digital questionnaires, providing assistance and incentives, and maintaining open communication with respondents. This approach ensured successful data collection from individuals residing in different Indonesian cities, taking into account their diverse ICT qualities, education levels, and standards of living. Preliminary analysis