Innovations

Gamification

Code

OB1.22

Title

Gamification

Case study/reference

Castellanos, S. (2016), “Delivering modal – shift incentives by using gamification and smartphones: A field study example in Bogota, Colombia”, Case Studies on Transport Policy, 4, 269-278.

Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R. & L. Nacke (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification. In Proceedings of the 15^th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, Tampere.

Deterding S., O'Hara K., Sicart M., Dixon D. & Lennart, N. (2011). Gamification: Using Game Design Elements in Non-Gaming Contexts. ACM CHI, 1-4.

Domínguez, A., Saenz-de-Navarrete, J., de-Marcos, L., Fernández-Sanz, L., Pagés, C. & J.-Martínez-Herráiz, J. (2013). Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes. Computers & Education, 63, 380–392

Examples of transport – related gamification applications:

Singapore’s INSINC program
GAMETUNED (UK)
S-Drive (Australia)
SmartDrive (New Zealand)
Waze
GasBuddy (USA and Canada)
SASABus (Italy)
From5To4 (the Netherlands)

Recommendations for the design

Gamification design should enhance user experience and increase user involvement. When designing a gamification platform/application for Public Transport, it should be taken into account that different areas have different road and traffic density as well as mobility cultures. Moreover, as the number of applications that adopt gamification continuously increases nowadays, more and more users agree to share voluntarily personal and social data as well as location specific information, which are used to provide individual and location – based mobility suggestions to users. Hence, it could be useful to incorporate in such applications, mechanisms that record which information has been shared with whom and where, in order to enhance transparency and thus users’ feeling of security and reduce significantly potential concerns about privacy issues.

Recommendations for the implementation

Research has shown that the implementation of game elements to non – game contexts has sometimes led to usability issues and confusion of users. Therefore, in addition to gamification’s impact on behavioural change, its impact on user experience should not be underestimated as well. Furthermore, as many applications require access to the users’ phone GPS sensor, attention should be paid in order to avoid the parallel run of malicious “hidden” apps, existing in the background and reporting users’ activities without them being aware of that. Last but not least, emotional factors such as fun, personal engagement or team spirit have been proved to have more influential power than rational factors like health benefits or environmental reasons.

Brief description

Gamification is a type of innovation that can be described as the application of game elements to non-game contexts.

Full description

Gamification takes the characteristics people like about games and adds them to everyday actions in order to make them more interesting. These game elements leverage people’s love for competition and reward and use it to encourage certain actions. An example of gamification is the web-based ''Eco-Driving advice'' service that supports eco-driving using CARWINGS, which was launched by Nissan in January 2007. This service calculates average fuel consumption based on vehicle information sent to CARWINGS from the customer's car and displays monthly fuel efficiency rankings on their website. Through this service the users can enjoy seeing how well they do as eco-drivers while being encouraged to pursue fuel-efficient habitς. The concept of gamification has received attention as a promising pylon for creativity and innovation. The main outcome of gamification is the engagement of the customer/user, which is a key factor that allows users to have an important role in the service by increasing their activity and social interaction. A remarkably large number of firms now provide gamification services and investments are being made into gamification related efforts. All the above lead to the conclusion that gamification is likely to be successful in attracting more Public Transport customers at limited costs.

CIPTEC score

3.6