Will privacy concerns limit the ability of smart phone technologies to help foster collaborative school travel?

Abstract

The GPS functionality in modern Smartphones has the capability of pinpointing an individual’s position at any given time. As a result, a wide variety of apps are now available, providing the user with location-specific services, tailored to their location in space and time. In a transportation sense, such functionality has potential for providing users with visibility of current and future potential transport options. Understanding where an individual is, where they have been and might be in the immediate future, and knowledge of their typical schedules and historic trace patterns means that opportunistic, collaborative travel opportunities might be possible.

A key issue with such a concept, however, is the extent to which individuals are prepared to share information on their whereabouts, schedules and travel habits with others. This concept is being explored as part of the 6th Sense Transport project and this paper looks specifically at using smartphone technology to visualise lift-sharing opportunities for the morning school run, and the associated privacy issues.

Findings from a study of parents of primary-age children suggested that such a ‘real time’ travel option visualisation system (RTOVS) must consider both who a user’s personal information is given to and the type of information given to be successfully adopted by users. This is because the benefits it offers must outweigh the privacy risks perceived by the users. Additionally, the survey results indicated that such a system will be particularly attractive to the educated, employed, high-income household with time-scheduling pressures.

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Identifiers

ORCID for T.J. Cherrett: orcid.org/0000-0003-0394-5459

ORCID for Ben Waterson: orcid.org/0000-0001-9817-7119

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