Design and Implementation of a Smartphone-Based Travel Survey

Abstract

This paper introduces a smartphone-based system for performing personal travel data collection. The Smartphone-Based Individual Travel Survey System (SITSS), is designed to deal with the challenges associated with applying smartphones in real-world travel surveys, including battery depletion, participant involvement, and privacy concerns. A prompted-recall smartphone-based data collection approach was used in the development of SITSS to facilitate the procedure of data collection while improving the accuracy of collected data. The system was used as part of the national household travel survey of New Zealand to investigate the various aspects of performing a national-level travel survey with smartphones. The study confirmed the successful performance of SITSS in a multiday travel survey. Participants found the data collection procedure an interesting experience, and 71% continued their participation beyond the requested data collection interval. Participants found that the procedure of data collection was straightforward—94% could complete the task without any support request. The smartphone application did not interrupt the normal use of the smartphone. The battery-saving algorithms used in the application was satisfactorily extended the battery life. The study addressed other challenges associated with implementing SITSS, including the procedure for labeling trips, respondents' experience with the data collection method, and concerns related to the performance of the smartphone application.