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Mobile services for green living
Resumo(s)
Urban cycling is a sustainable transport mode that many cities are promoting.
However, few cities are taking advantage of geospatial technologies to represent
and analyse behavioural patterns and barriers faced during cycling. This thesis
is within the fields of geoinformatics and serious games, and the motivation
came from our desire to help both citizens and cities to better understand cyclist
behaviour and mobility patterns. We attempted to learn more about the impact
of gamified strategies on engagement with cycling, the reasons for choosing
between mobile cycling applications and the way such applications would provide
commuting information. Furthermore, we explored the potential benefits of offering
tools to build decision-making for mobility more transparent, to increase cycling
data availability, and to analyse commuting patterns. In general, we found our
research useful to enhance green living actions by increasing citizens’ willingness
to commute by bicycle or communicating cycling conditions in cities.
For urban cycling, data coming from mobile phones can provide a better assessment
and enrich the analysis presented in traditional mobility plans. However,
the diversity of current mobile applications targeting cyclists does not provide
useful data for analysing commuter (inner-city, non-sporting) cycling. Just a few
cyclists are adopting these applications as part of their commuting routine, while
on the other hand cities are lacking a valuable source of constantly updated cycling
information helpful to understand cycling patterns and the role of bicycles in urban
transport.
This thesis analyses how the incentives of location-based games or geo-games
might increase urban cycling engagement and, through this engagement, crowdsource
cycling data collection to allow cities to better comprehend cycling patterns.
Consequently, the experiment followed a between-groups design to measure the
impact of virtual rewards provided by the Cyclist Geo-c application on the levels of intention, satisfaction, and engagement with cycling. Then, to identify the frictions
which potentially inhibit bicycle commuting, we analysed the bicycle trips crowdsourced
with the geo-game. Our analysis relied on a hexagonal grid of 30-metre
cell side to aggregate trip trajectories, calculate the friction intensity and locate the
frictions.
The thesis reports on the results of an experiment which involved a total of
57 participants in three European cities: M¨unster (Germany), Castell ´o (Spain),
and Valletta (Malta). We found participants reported higher satisfaction and
engagement with cycling during the experiment in the collaboration condition.
However, we did not find a significant impact on the participants’ worldview when
it comes to the intentions to start or increase cycling. The results support the
use of collaboration-based rewards in the design of game-based applications to
promote urban cycling. Furthermore, we validated a procedure to identify not only
the cyclists’ preferred streets but also the frictions faced during cycling analysing
the crowdsourced trips. We successfully identified 284 places potentially having
frictions: 71 in M¨unster, Germany; 70 in Castell ´ o, Spain; and 143 in Valletta,
Malta. At such places, participants recorded trip segments at speeds below 5
Km/h indicating a deviation from a hypothetical scenario with a constant cycling
speed.
This thesis encompasses the cyclist and city perspectives of offering virtual
incentives in geo-games and crowdsourcing cycling data collection to better comprehend
cycling conditions in cities. We also compiled a set of tools and recommendations
for researchers, practitioners, mobile developers, urban planners and
cyclist associations interested in fostering sustainable transport and the use of
bicycles.
Descrição
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Information Management, specialization in Geographic Information Systems
Palavras-chave
Urban cycling Mobile Gamification Geoinformatics Frictions Incentives