Originally Posted by
cooker
I started out writing a rebuttal to you but the authors don't actually give me much to work with - I can't find a full report, and what I can find, is all about "apps". I think it's pretty likely the actual participants didn't only give feedback on what apps they want, but the study proponents are looking for ways to promote technology, so apps are their interest.
Having said that, there's nothing wrong with doing a pilot study or demonstration study with a small group of volunteers. In fact, when you enrol people in a study and ask them to to do something (as opposed to simply looking at data on what they've already been doing) they're always going to be volunteers - we don't force people to participate in research. So the fact they were volunteers is not a criticism of this study, unless the authors then claimed the findings could be generalized to the whole population (which they don't).
When conducting a traffic study of course we use volunteers. The difference is in how the volunteers are chosen. The idea is to get a good representation of the population under study. Look at the pictures of twelve of the eighteen volunteers shown on the "study" page and see if they represent a good sample of the transit riders (or general population) of either San Francisco or Boston...
This "study" is an exercise in marketing. Nothing more. Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but as such it doesn't really supply any information of actual value. If a cigarette company were to issue a study touting the benefits of smoking, just how much trust should be placed in those results? None, and this is the case where any "study" is done by those who clearly have an agenda. All to often we see marketing/advertising agencies use the illusion of science to push what is essentially propaganda. Just because one might agree with the motivation/goal of such an act, doesn't mean that we don't have a responsibility to acknowledge that it isn't science and that the "results" are not facts or truths that have been proven...
Other agencies/studies have shown that transit riders do receive benefit from better information (such as can be delivered via smart phones); however, such information mostly helps the occasional or new riders. For someone who uses the system on a regular basis they get to know the schedules and as long as service is consistent they don't make much use of such services; except when they deviate from their normal routes. Of course since the transit agencies have minimal cost to make the information available (most such services are provided by third party developers) it is a no lose situation for them. This is especially true of small transit systems.
Some examples are the Advance Transit Bus system in Hanover and Lebanon, New Hampshire; Metrowest Regional Transit System in Massachusets (
http://www.geolabvirtualmaps.com/MetroWest.aspx); and the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority
One recent study even looked at providing real time transit tracking and scheduling information to end users without needing any data/infrastructure on the part of the Transit Agency. The study made use of apps running on riders smartphones which reported information on their route/time/location to a central server and thereby provided all of the users with good up-to-date information on current transit schedule. That study/paper "Cooperative Transit Tracking using Smart-phones" was conducted in Chicago and was authored by Thiagarajan, Biagioni, Gerlich, and Eriksson and published in SenSys'10