How to use smartphone apps to encourage cycling: Clues from a Living Lab with SMART in Enschede

Reduction in car use is one of the most effective ways to tackle congestion related problems. Using positive incentives to stimulate the use of the bike is one possibility to reduce car use, and cycling is a sustainable transport mode that uses little space and good for health. There is evidence that positive incentives may be more effective than punishing travellers for undesirable behaviour. The SMART app uses challenges with rewards, feedback, and message functions to promote cycling in a real-world living lab environment, in the Dutch region of Twente, and it automatically tracks travel data. We found from a mockup app study that earning points from challenges which can be redeemed for in-kind gifts is the most promising reward to change travel behaviour. However, few studies focus on what challenge to provide. Beyond commercial cycling apps like Strava, CycleMaps, BetterPoints, the SMART also focuses on the effectiveness test of multiple challenges over a year-long term and identify the mediating factors and the possible moderators for cycling behaviour change. As a result, we are better able to establish which type of challenges is most successful and what the effects are on car use. Preliminary results are summarized in this article.