The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

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

Will privacy concerns limit the ability of smart phone technologies to help foster collaborative school travel?
Will privacy concerns limit the ability of smart phone technologies to help foster collaborative school travel?
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.
Cruickshanks, Scott
0f120b5d-2fa7-43c0-8cbd-e948893bb829
Cherrett, T.J.
e5929951-e97c-4720-96a8-3e586f2d5f95
Waterson, Ben
60a59616-54f7-4c31-920d-975583953286
Norgate, Sarah
3bc6ba7f-c1bf-4705-8a59-02c68431bfc1
Davies, Nigel
7bb375fa-5c2a-4711-8aa2-efb40fb807ca
Speed, Chris
86b91777-0f09-4b62-a0f0-19be3e64b84a
Dickinson, Janet
d645fb15-2567-4012-a442-8a7605be4860
Cruickshanks, Scott
0f120b5d-2fa7-43c0-8cbd-e948893bb829
Cherrett, T.J.
e5929951-e97c-4720-96a8-3e586f2d5f95
Waterson, Ben
60a59616-54f7-4c31-920d-975583953286
Norgate, Sarah
3bc6ba7f-c1bf-4705-8a59-02c68431bfc1
Davies, Nigel
7bb375fa-5c2a-4711-8aa2-efb40fb807ca
Speed, Chris
86b91777-0f09-4b62-a0f0-19be3e64b84a
Dickinson, Janet
d645fb15-2567-4012-a442-8a7605be4860

Cruickshanks, Scott, Cherrett, T.J., Waterson, Ben, Norgate, Sarah, Davies, Nigel, Speed, Chris and Dickinson, Janet (2013) Will privacy concerns limit the ability of smart phone technologies to help foster collaborative school travel? 92nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, , Washington, United States. 13 - 17 Jan 2013. 15 pp .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

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.

Text
2013 [62] School Travel Privacy TRB.pdf - Other
Download (1MB)

More information

Published date: January 2013
Venue - Dates: 92nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, , Washington, United States, 2013-01-13 - 2013-01-17
Organisations: Transportation Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 348570
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/348570
PURE UUID: e5211538-06c8-4740-b7cc-a4701806186b
ORCID for T.J. Cherrett: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0394-5459
ORCID for Ben Waterson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9817-7119

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 18 Feb 2013 12:36
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:58

Export record

Contributors

Author: Scott Cruickshanks
Author: T.J. Cherrett ORCID iD
Author: Ben Waterson ORCID iD
Author: Sarah Norgate
Author: Nigel Davies
Author: Chris Speed
Author: Janet Dickinson

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×