Mobility data fair, useful, secure and comprehensible
In FreeMove, we address the major fundamental issues surrounding the handling of movement data, as data is particularly worthy of protection and at the same time essential for research.
The potential of analysing movement data is enormous for tackling critical problems such as epidemics and disasters, but also for sustainable, people-centred and environmentally conscious urban and transport planning. On the other hand, there are challenges associated with making such movement data available: the legally and ethically required high level of protection of people's privacy calls for sophisticated mathematical and technical anonymisation procedures.
Realisation
In order to approach this complex topic, an initial survey was conducted with students in FreeMove. Four groups were given different information on data protection and privacy risks and were asked about their perceptions and attitudes. Over the next few weeks, the researchers at the Institute of Transport Research hope to find out from the extensive data how "informedness" about data protection affects participation in mobility research projects and how mobility surveys can be made even more transparent from a data protection perspective.
Results
The distances travelled by students clearly show how their mobility differs from the everyday mobility of the population.
- 14 days
- 80 students
- 1,200 journeys
- 12,000 km
Almost half of the journeys and sections of journeys (stages) were made on foot, but only 10% of the transport performance (in kilometres) was achieved. Public rail transport accounts for the largest share of transport performance with 53% of the kilometres travelled. However, only 22% of journeys by public transport were made by rail. However, this also includes combinations of modes of transport used (e.g. walking to public transport, travelling by train, walking from public transport). As expected, "active modes of transport" (walking and cycling) play a greater role for the participating students than for the cross-section of the population. Although only 8% of journeys were made by car, 20% of kilometres were covered!
Campaign details
Runtime:
6 months
Methods:
Data recording via MovingLab app, in-app survey, visualisation with MovingLab dashboard at the DataLab
Projekt:
FreeMove