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Title:

Five-Star Transportation Planning: Using Online Activity Reviews to Understand and Plan for Localized Travel

Accession Number:

01552882

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Abstract:

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are generating unprecedented quantities of data applicable to transportation planning and research, including activity and travel reviews. People post reviews of experiences while out in urban settings to search and social networking services such as Yelp, Tripadvisor, Foursquare, and Google. The author uses activity reviews from the “Yelp” search service to analyze a range of transportation issues in Phoenix, Arizona. Content analysis facilitates aggregation and pattern seeking in the more than 225,000 reviews compiled for destinations in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Substantial numbers of these open-ended reviews include transportation content, but that content varies significantly by location and trip purpose. Taken as a whole, the data provide information about how travel by multiple modes to a wide range of activities varies from neighborhood to neighborhood throughout an urban region. While the data do not yield individual travel patterns, they associate geographically-specific locations and activities with a wide range of transportation phenomena. They echo traditional transportation analysis measures such as activity location, trip purpose, and travel mode, measures which may not available from other ICT-based data sources such as GPS or cell phone traces. Still, the experiential nature of the data, derived from volunteered activity reviews, serves as both a challenge and an opportunity, bringing not just behavior but perceptions and preferences directly into the analysis. Despite the challenges, data like Yelp reviews are an opportunity to refine the understanding of local and regional transportation networks, how they are used, and where improvements may be needed.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE30 Transportation Issues in Major U.S. Cities.

Monograph Accession #:

01550057

Report/Paper Numbers:

15-3418

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Mondschein, Andrew

Pagination:

17p

Publication Date:

2015

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC, United States
Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Diskette; References; Tables

Identifier Terms:

Yelp

Subject Areas:

Data and Information Technology; Highways; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-3418

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Dec 30 2014 1:09PM