Page 63 - Proceeding of Atrans Young Researcher's Forum 2019_Neat

“Transportation for A Better Life:
Smart Mobility for Now and Then”

23 August 2019, Bangkok, Thailand

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Trivector (Sweden), DEST hired the app named TRavelVU can be easily found in both
TRavelVU that is available for both Android and Google Play and App store. A user can install it and
iOS platforms during one month. join in a survey by a corresponding password. At the
The survey was undertaken from mid-March time of survey in Hanoi, TRavelVU had a number of
to mid-April to include trips by metro that had surveys in European countries (Figure 1). Normally,
declared to operate at the first day of April. The the app requires a user to answer some questions
objectives of the survey are (1) assessing the about age, gender, educational level, monthly
potential of smartphone for observing travel patterns income and vehicle ownership; yet, due to the
in urban areas and (2) developing methods to obtain language barrier, DEST removed them from the app.
trip information from GPS data. Instead, interviews via telephone or chat on
As for recruitments, firstly, ten motivated Facebook Messenger, Zalo or emails in Vietnamese
colleagues of the authors at University of Transport were employed. During the survey process, users
and Communications in Hanoi were invited and needed to turn off saving mode and turn on GPS
accepted to participate in the survey. Next, the function in their phones. The app passively collected
authors made a post on Facebook showing the scope data and returned/launched trip information
and goals of the survey and tagging ten first including average speed, length, duration and mode.
respondents. The authors received many feedbacks A user had to check and correct data if
from students, colleagues and relatives also. For recommendations were wrong. Along with mode,
those expressing interests in the survey, the authors the user was asked to provide a purpose or a location
kept in touch at individual level by Facebook type of a place between two trips. In case of being
Messenger to explain how to install and master the uncertain about a segment, (s)he could choose it to
app to provide data effectively and efficiently. Once see the visualization of points on the map. Finally,
a user accepted to join the survey, the corresponding (s)he submitted data of the whole day but not at trip
staff gave the password to access the survey to level.
him/her and a document of detailed instructions in
Vietnamese with screen shots of the app. Based on
the relationship between users, groups on Messenger
and Zalo, a pervasive free message and call
application in Vietnam, were created to save efforts
of communications. A participant could remove the
app after at least a week with at least seven days
validated. After reaching the target, validation was
optional.

Fig. 2 Based on an itinerary recommended by the
app, a user needs to correct modes of segments and
provide type of location labeled “unknown”

The list of participants reporting to install
the app was comprised of 85; however, Trivector
Fig. 1 User must type the password to access to the reported and delivered data of 72. The difference
Hanoi survey may come from the technical problems and the fact
that some registered ones did not install in reality.

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