Integration of serious games to promote user behavior in public transport optimization application
Collaborative Public Transport Optimization (CPTO) is based on the cloud service paradigm. The client mobile application is used by the travelers to send their information about their origin, destination locations and their desired pick-up time. In turn, the central application, located on the cloud, by taking into account the traveler’s input together with information about the current traffic situation, dynamically proposes bus routes and departure times in order to achieve specific goals, like minimizing the waiting time and the travel time experienced by the passengers.
The main problem of applications like CPTO is the need for massive adaptation by the majority of the travelers. For this reason in the concept of a serious game has been deployed at creating an ecosystem for connected and collaborative public transport for the travelers. The ecosystem is based on rewarding proper user behavior through virtual and/or real-world incentives.
Serious games are purposed-based tool with the primary motive to induce a concept through gameplay and they are widely used in training activities to improvise the user engagement and make the learning process more consistent.
If we take up the automotive domain, there are numerous advancements associated with road safety, such as ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) and in-vehicle infotainment systems. By combining serious games along with safe Human-Machine Interface (HMI), we can reinforce the aspect of coaching the travelers through gamification process for utilizing the public transport services, efficiently. It is also necessary that every road user contributes towards enhancing the transportation elasticity and safety. For this purpose, there can be a collaborative network of road users for information sharing, gaming (based on performance) and other necessary details concerned travelling. As the community expands, the need for collaborative mobility gets instilled among the road users and thus the concept of serious game stands as a prominent factor for captivating the end-users in utilizing their smart devices for transportation elasticity and safety.
Gamification structure to improve user behavior and a high-level overview of the integration of serious games application with CPTO, Greece
For application like CPTO, where large amount of travelers are involved to follow up the transportation service, it is necessary to have medium that would motivate and engage the users to cooperate with the system. The aspect of incentives from serious game application will act as a factor of motivation for the users to excel in the game and also it is an ideal way to coach the users for performance betterment. As, the rewards are associated with real-world, there is more scope to extend the collaboration with public authorities, retail outlets and online shopping portals for providing benefits for the users. Therefore, the adaptation of system will become prevalent and also it is an opportunity for public authorities and other outlets to be a part of this ecosystem to foster collaborative and optimized transportation of road users. Considering the gaming options, we have provided incentives and visualization of performance. But, the game architecture can be extended with diversified gaming options along with the functionality to select preferred game type. By, this the users are open to prefer the game type for visualizing their performance from real-world scenarios.
The implemented serious game architecture supports the entry of new applications in future as well, to grade the user performance on mobility standards. The adaptation of system depends upon its resilient ability and as the need for adaption remains as a prominent factor, we had focused on making the architecture extensible and scalable for accommodating new applications.