Use of Mobile Media While Traveling

 

New technologies with mobile internet access like smartphones and tablets are experience an increase in use among the population (cf. BVDW et al. 2012:S. 5-8). While 6.1 million people in German owned a smarphone in 2009, that number grew to 41.1 million in 2014 (Statista 2015: o.S.). These technologies and their use are advancing further and further into everyday life, such as the use of mobile transport data through apps like that offered by Deutsche Bahn.

In the Master's project seminar "Transport, IKT & Logistics," students researched the use of mobile transport data in public transportation in Aachen and the surrounding area. Between March 9 and 13, 2015, they conducted a survey and train and busstops in the Aachen region, under the direction of Professor C. Neiberger and A. Hörstmann-Jungemann, M.Sc. from the RWTH Institute of Geography.

The project seminar aimed to determine how mobile transport data is used by travelers and what consequences result from this use.

The following questions were investigated:

What do we do while traveling?
Does using mobile data change our routes?
Why do we terminate or interrupt our travel or journey?