This project proposes an engaging system for conscious travelers to plan, get around a city, and realize the impact of their small steps in trips, to trigger and retain their behavior changes in sustainable mobility.
Tourism has become a social, cultural, and economic phenomenon. It is strictly connected with mobility, because the ways of traveling to a destination and the accessibility of this one have an influence on travel decision. However, mobility is also accounting for the largest proportion of carbon emissions in tourism, which largely led to the global warming. People on the journey are not unsustainable, rather, research shows that most people have become "moderately responsible" for sustainability issues. However, since people rarely recognize how important their contributions are and there are often more pressing decisions to be made during the journey, there is a gap between sustainable intentions and behaviors, and also a lack of motivation to maintain sustainable behaviors.
Therefore, by focusing on three aspects - behavior recording, visualizing sustainable contributions, and reducing the cost of making travel mode decisions - this project effectively triggers behavior change in sustainable choices through different touchpoints.
Keywords: Sustainable travel, Behavior trigger, Visualization, Transit card, Kiosk, UX design
WTO defines sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities”. The growing trend in travel mobility pressures the environment from energy consumption, air pollution, and greenhouse emissions. It represents not only environmental problems but also economic and social.
Unfortunately, most of the existing solutions aim to provide more mobility options and promote sustainable transportation from a policy perspective. There are few designs that affect tourists' sustainable mobility choices from a personal level.
Smatter helps to motivate our users to use sustainable transportation during their Travel. By designing a system that integrates public transport & carbon emission tracker with a gamification approach, It encourages the traveler to get around the city. Our main objective is to raise awareness of one's individual impact by visualizing their actions and, in the end, show how their small steps matter collectively.
Integrated transportation systems are not new, but how to trigger users' sustainability concerns and behaviors through such systems is especially important in this climate-sensitive era. After several rounds of research and testing, Smatter's usability and effectiveness have been validated to a certain extent. We hope that Smatter will not only automate, visualize and delight people throughout their travel mobility journeys to subconsciously help them change their behavior, but also serve as a starting point and inspiration for creating sustainable transportation cycles around the world.
Smatter believes that every step people take matters to the planet, whether we travel by metro, bus, bicycle, or scooter. So, Smatter made the invisible visible and invite you to witness our contribution together!
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