Exploring the capacity of social media data for modelling travel behaviour: Opportunities and challenges. (February 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rashidi, Taha H.; Abbasi, Alireza; Maghrebi, Mojtaba; Hasan, Samiul; Waller, Travis S.
• Is Part Of: Transportation research. Volume 75(2017)
• Page Start: 197
• Page End: 211
• Publication Date: 2017-02
• Subjects: Travel diary survey -- Social media -- Travel demand modelling -- Mobility behaviour; Transportation -- Periodicals; Transportation -- Technological innovations -- Periodicals; 388.011
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2016.12.008
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0968-090X

Abstract

Highlights: Presenting an overview of applications of social media data in transport engineering. Presenting a bibliometric analysis on evolution of applications of social media data. Analysing a survey on travel demand experts' opinion on capacity of social media data. Discussing research directions for behavioural travel demand modelling research. Abstract: In the past few years, the social science literature has shown significance attention to extracting information from social media to track and analyse human movements. In this paper the transportation aspect of social media is investigated and reviewed. A detailed discussion is provided about how social media data from different sources can be used to indirectly and with minimal cost extract travel attributes such as trip purpose, mode of transport, activity duration and destination choice, as well as land use variables such as home, job and school location and socio-demographic attributes including gender, age and income. The evolution of the field of transport and travel behaviour around applications of social media over the last few years is studied. Further, this paper presents results of a qualitative survey from travel demand modelling experts around the world on applicability of social media data for modelling daily travel behaviour. The result of the survey reveals positive view of the experts about usefulness of such data sources.