THE HAGUE - In an article in our Smart Cities series, my colleague Choe Sang-Hun reported on how citizens of Seoul are able to connect to a city information system to receive real-time traffic information or mass transit updates.
But useful commuter information - such as road conditions, traffic density or even the punctuality of a buses, trams and trains - doesn't have to come from government offices.
A new study explores how commuters in one California city share travel information via specialized social networks, accessible from mobile apps.
Drivers in San Jose, California (the state's second largest city, after Los Angeles), not only reached their destinatio ns faster by staying connected with other drivers, they were also less impatient about getting there, the study, released Monday by the New Cities Foundation, reported. The study provides insight into how social networking - mostly used in our downtime now - might help make cities and commuters more efficient during working hours.
“It's not just important in terms of the actual time saved, but also how much time you feel you are saving,†said Naureen Kabir, who led the study.
In a 21st-century equivalent of flashing your headlights to warn of an upcoming speed trap, drivers also felt good about sharing information that would help others on the road, the authors found. “It is the element of not just receiving information that is useful,†said Ms. Kabir.
Indeed, the desire to give advice and help to others makes the system work, she said.
The study analyzed thousands of comments that users left on two mobile apps, Waze and Roadify. User comments were analyzed for their usefulness to fellow commuters and their general sentiment.
In terms of social networking habits, there is a difference between those commuters using public transportation and those using cars, the study suggests.
And the news is not not good for those worried about â€distracted driving.â€
Because unlike public transit users who tend to use their apps when planning the journey, drivers rely on information from social networks both to plan their route (by checking where traffic is lightest, for example) and in real-time (to get updates on those tr affic jams).
Public transit commuters have less interest in real-time digital social interactions with fellow commuters. They rely instead on announcements, signs and actual conversations with fellow passengers for travel information, Ms. Kabir said.
While the study focused on the digital social interaction between commuters, the authors believe that commuter social networking can help municipalities understand traffic patterns and even harvest traffic data in real-time.
“It is a two-way street between traffic authorities and commuters, between community and municipality,†said Ms. Kabir.
In a section of the report called sentiment analysis, the authors set out to determine the level of frustration (or in rare cases, joy) commuters felt in certain situations and locations or at certain times of day. For example, the study found traffic jams of comparable intensity were experienced as being more frustrating for commuters in the evening than in the morning.
The New Cities Foundation is a Switzerland-based non-profit that studies life in cities; it also has offices in France and the United States.
The study was supported in part by the San Jose Department of Transportation, the makers of the Roadify and Waze apps, who helped collect and analyze data from their users, and was prepared by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at the University of California, Berkley.
In a future phase of the study, the New Cities Foundation hopes to actually quantify the amount of time (and fuel) saved by those who connect during their commute, said Ms. Kabir. This could provide hard proof that crowdsourcing your commute can increase overall urban sustainability.
What do you think? Do you think social networking can make traveling more efficient? Have you tried it?
