Prabhakar, Grison and Morgagni – SMARTPHONE MOBILITY ASSISTANTS 2022

Description

This study explores how smartphone mobility assistants can guide route choice preferences in mass transit to mitigate passenger congestion. An online experiment with 582 participants examined how route selection was influenced by the visual format of route choices (spatial, temporal, or symbolic) and the explicit presentation of comfort-related information (transfer complexity and in-vehicle crowding). The findings reveal two significant levers: firstly, a “perceptive heuristic” emerged where passengers presented with a transit map display showed a preference for routes that appeared visually shorter, even if they were actually slower. Secondly, providing explicit information about more comfortable options—such as simpler transfers or less crowded routes—successfully swayed a proportion of participants away from the fastest routes towards these slower but more comfortable alternatives. The study concludes that leveraging both visuo-spatial representations and explicit comfort information in smartphone mobility assistants offers effective strategies for mass transit operators to optimize passenger flow and reduce congestion.