TY - JOUR PY - 2020// TI - Lessons from a large-scale experiment on the use of smartphone apps to collect travel diary data: the "City Logger" for the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area JO - Transportation research record A1 - Faghih Imani, Ahmadreza A1 - Harding, Chris A1 - Srikukenthiran, Siva A1 - Miller, Eric J. A1 - Nurul Habib, Khandker SP - 299 EP - 311 VL - 2674 IS - 7 N2 - Smartphones offer a potential alternative to collect high-quality information on the travel patterns of individuals without burdening the respondents with reporting every detail of their travel. Smartphone apps have recently become a common tool for travel survey data collection around the world, especially for multiday surveys. However, there still exists a lack of systematic assessment of issues related to smartphone app-based surveys, such as the impact of app design or the recruitment method on the collected data. Through a large-scale experiment (named the City Logger), this paper assesses the data produced by the City Logger app, to better understand recruitment avenues (targeted invitation versus crowdsourcing), and examine differences in respondents' travel behavior recruited through crowdsourcing methods. The paper also examines how app design, and particularly the user input method for trip validation, influences participants' responses. The results indicate that, while crowdsourcing recruitment is promising, it might not yet be the best way to capture a true representation of the population. For app design, a combination of real-time and travel diary approaches is recommended. An ideal app would prompt users real-time and create a travel diary, so users can validate, edit, or delete the recorded information.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0361-1981 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0361198120921860 ID - ref1 ER -