Active transportation, citizen Engagement and livability: coupling citizens and Smartphones to Make the change

Supporting livable cities is a key priority of the Obama Administration, fully embraced by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, and necessitates increased active transportation (walking and cycling) in communities across the country. Transportation data that support active transportation planning are lacking for most communities. With the increasing pervasiveness of smartphones that are graphically rich, spatially accurate, and simple to use, it is now possible to approach transportation and livability data collection in a new way by engaging citizens directly in the process. This paper describes the development and testing of an iPhone-based transportation livability audit tool called the Fix This Tool, a tool specifically designed to engage and empower citizens across the country to easily collect active transportation data to help local communities and transportation agencies meet the needs of the livability era. The tool requires no special training, is spatially specific, and addresses subjective perception of place as well as key objective variables that underlie that perception. Through initial development and testing, we found the tool to be intuitive for people to use and the data robust, and that the combination of features available on a smartphone-based tool provides a rich set of opportunities for both the citizen and the public agency to be engaged in improving their active transportation system. That said, it is clear that active transportation data can be complex and “messy” and will require new approaches toward use compared to traditional, objective measured regional scale measures used for transportation modeling. built-environment qualities may include sidewalk presence and condition, buffer between sidewalk and moving cars, type of bike facilities, lighting, street trees, architectural design, and scores of other potential variables (Pikora, Bull et al. 2002; Vernez Moudon and Lee 2003; Clifton, Smith et al. 2007). For all these objective indicators, however, they may never fully explain an individual’s quick intuitive assessment of the built environment (McGinn, Evenson et al. 2007). For active transportation planning, it is likely that initial perceptions, especially the perception of safety, are critical in deciding whether individuals will even consider biking or walking as an option in the future (Ogilvie, Egan et al. 2004). This more subjective and perception-based relationship between active transportation users (or potential users) and the built environment presents a new and more complex challenge to transportation planners. A key question then becomes, how do we create a set of national data, useful for active transportation planning, and based on individual experience of the local walking or biking environment? This paper explores a potential approach to bridging the new data needs of transportation agencies by catalyzing a general citizenry, equipped with their own smartphones, mobilized to act as both data gatherers and system users to assist local public officials in prioritizing and improving local active transportation