Incentivizing Commuter Cycling by Financial and Non-Financial Rewards
Language English Country Switzerland Media electronic
Document type Journal Article, Randomized Controlled Trial, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PubMed
32825070
PubMed Central
PMC7503873
DOI
10.3390/ijerph17176033
PII: ijerph17176033
Knihovny.cz E-resources
- Keywords
- active mobility, behavioral change, incentives, randomized experiment, smartphone app,
- MeSH
- Smartphone * MeSH
- Bicycling * MeSH
- Adult MeSH
- Financing, Personal MeSH
- Middle Aged MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Mobile Applications * MeSH
- Motivation * MeSH
- Reward MeSH
- Health Behavior * MeSH
- Check Tag
- Adult MeSH
- Middle Aged MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Male MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
- Randomized Controlled Trial MeSH
Current mobility patterns over-rely on transport modes that do not benefit sustainable and healthy lifestyles. To explore the potential for active mobility, we conducted a randomized experiment aimed at increasing regular commuter cycling in cities. In designing the experiment, we teamed up with developers of the "Cyclers" smartphone app to improve the effectiveness of the app by evaluating financial and non-financial motivational features. Participants in the experiment were recruited among new users of the app, and were randomly assigned to one of four different motivational treatments (smart gamification, two variants of a financial reward, and a combination of smart gamification and a financial reward) or a control group (no specific motivation). Our analysis suggests that people can be effectively motivated to engage in more frequent commuter cycling with incentives via a smartphone app. Offering small financial rewards seems to be more effective than smart gamification. A combination of both motivational treatments-smart gamification and financial rewards-may work the same or slightly better than financial rewards alone. We demonstrate that small financial rewards embedded in smartphone apps such as "Cyclers" can be effective in nudging people to commute by bike more often.
Environment Centre Charles University 162 00 Prague Czech Republic
FEE Artificial Intelligence Center Czech Technical University Prague 121 35 Prague Czech Republic
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