The potential impact of using travel apps as a tool to reduce car use in cities. A literature review

Abstract

64% of total trip-km are made in urban environments and these phenomena threaten urban sustainability (Van Audenhove et al. 2014). In the last decades, cities have been applying different policy measures to reduce car use. But they have notable limitations and usually produced small impacts (Sunio y Schmöcker 2017). Smartphone has emerged as a promising alternative tool to enhance the effects of the policy interventions, because it can overcome several limitations and improve their efficient adoption of sustainable options. Travel apps can be very useful because they provide accurate and real-time information. In addition, user-created information could greatly reinforce information from operators. A review of the literature of 98 recent papers was performed. It had two main objectives: which factors influence commuters to use travel apps; and second, what persuasive interventions supported by travel apps produce changes towards a more sustainable mobility behavior. Some facets offered by apps are effective for changing travel behaviour: individualized advice, feedback on one's own behavior and social comparisons between users. The GoEco! experimental travel app, provided feedback and social comparisons on travel behavior among users (Cellina et al. 2019). It was found to produce a statistically significant change in individual mobility patterns. Travel apps remain underutilized, especially in suburban travel. Scholars found factors that influence app usage: curiosity, expectations of increased utility, attractive design and performance attributes are influence factor for app usage. In contrast, environmental motives, privacy (desire not to share information) and age (older people are less likely to adopt apps) do not influence or do so not significantly. The findings of the literature review show that, moreover, to increase apps usage, app design and implementation requires different strategies for each segment of the population. There are groups of people who are more likely to use apps (e.g., technophiles and young people).