Sponsor
This project was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC; grant #1397), a U.S DOT University Transportation Center.
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
1-2024
Abstract
Our interdisciplinary team refined an app prototype, MyAmble, to gather data related to quantity of transportation disadvantage and latent demand, and to identify psycho-social-economic corollaries. MyAmble utilizes a traditional travel diary format but expands the type of trips measured to include 1) completed trips, 2) missed trips, and 3) latent travel demand. The app also measures the real-time perceived impact of transportation behaviors (realized and latent) on participants’ physical health, mental health, social engagement, and employment/academics. Finally, the app has a text-messaging feature, Travel Buddy, that is used to increase participant engagement and retention over longitudinal data collection. The project had several phases including focus groups to help inform app refinement. We deployed the MyAmble prototype through community-engaged research strategies in Dallas, TX, Tucson, AZ, and Knoxville, TN. Recruiting through community partners and snowball sampling resulted in a sample of 77 participants. The majority of participants were female (74.7%) and the average age of participants was 38.41 (SD 13.61) years old. In terms of race and ethnicity, the majority of participants were white (45.5 %) followed by Black/African American (28.6%), Hispanic or Latinx (10.4 %), and American Indian or Alaska Native (5.2%). The prototype testing shows promise in capturing latent travel demand data among typically underserved populations. The study generated critical feedback for continued improvements to MyAmble. Participants expressed positive feedback about MyAmble in the usability survey and offered recommendations for improving the app during the follow-up focus group. Transportation professionals offered recommendations for implementation planning and future studies using MyAmble.
DOI
10.15760/trec.294
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/41179
Recommended Citation
Fields, N.L., Cronley, C., Mattingly, S., Iroz-Elardo, N., Levine, D., Gudipati, Nithisha Reddy, Highfill, C., Stringfellow, M,K., O’Dell, A., Cole, R., and Huslage, M. Using a Smartphone App-based Data Collection Method to Characterize Latent Transportation Demand and Impacts on Health and Quality of Life within Marginalized and Underserved Populations NITC-RR-1397. Portland, OR: Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), 2023. https://doi.org/10.15760/trec.294
Description
This is a final report, NITC-RR-1397, from the NITC program of TREC at Portland State University, and can be found online at: https://nitc.trec.pdx.edu/research/project/1397