Exploratory Analysis of a Smartphone-Based Travel Survey in Singapore

Abstract

Future Mobility Sensing (FMS) is an innovative smartphone-based travel survey system that was field tested in 2012/2013 together with the Household Interview Travel Survey (HITS) in Singapore. This paper presents findings of exploratory analysis of the data collected in this test. Clustering of day patterns from FMS data reveals large day-to-day variability of user behavior, which cannot be captured by a snapshot with a one-day survey. Even the high cross-sectional variability from the larger sample size of a traditional survey would not have achieved the comprehensive set of heterogeneous patterns as provided by FMS. Some common problems in traditional surveys – such as under-reporting of trips, over-estimation of travel times, and inaccuracy of locations and times – can apparently be reduced by FMS. The FMS data, as compared to HITS, have higher resolution and better accuracy. In addition, FMS is well suited to collect multi-day data as additional costs are marginal and user burden reduces overtime. FMS offers a promising technology for next generation travel data collection.