Can we promote sustainable travel behavior through mobile apps? Evaluation and review of evidence

ABSTRACT

Mobile phone applications to monitor and influence one's behavior are numerous. Most developed appear to be health applications, but in the past decade, “persuasive technology” has also been leveraged and applied to promote sustainable travel behavior. We discuss the health applications and review and evaluate existing behavior change support systems (BCSS) designed to promote sustainable travel behavior. We extract the persuasive features embedded in these systems and evaluate their persuasive potential by using the persuasive systems design (PSD) model that has been used to evaluate BCSSs in the health domain. Our evaluation reveals that some features crucial for successful travel behavior change, such as tunneling, rehearsal, and social facilitation, are missing. Furthermore, we assess studies conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of these BCSSs in changing behavior and find indications that effect sizes are mostly small though methodologically robust studies are largely missing; hence, no definitive conclusion yet can be derived. Based on these findings as well as literature related to public health where BCSSs appear to be further developed, we then derive three important suggestions on research needs and applications for further development of BCSSs in the transport policy realm.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavior change support system
• persuasive technology
• smartphone
• sustainability
• travel behavior