Data Consumers
Study of QR Codes in Southampton Bus Stops
by Christopher Gutteridge
Last year, an MSc student called Nick Gammer worked with data.southampton to study the value of QR Codes at bus-stops (linking to real-time data). There’s a few surprises in the results,
The key findings were:
The QR code trial was successful with increasing use over the life of the project.
Unprompted respondent comments were largely positive. The time trend of daily hit counts shows the project gained popularity over the time it was in operation, especially given book-marked hits were not recorded.
QR Code use was unaffected by the day of the week
There was little variation in average daily use and a One-Way ANOVA test confirmed no significant difference in average daily hits.
The QR code system was likely to have been beneficial to both regular, familiar, commuters and irregular, unfamiliar leisure travellers
Use was very consistent between weekdays/weekends and peak/inter-peak times. Also, survey results asking respondents whether they would be more likely to use the service on a familiar or unfamiliar route were reasonably evenly split (57% to 43% respectively). Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the change of acceptability of wait time between the two groups.
Scanning as opposed to entering the URL in a mobile browser was the preferred access method
Only 0.6% of hits recorded were through typing a URL
It is not beneficial to provide instructions on, or promotion of QR code use as there is no effect on uptake
Use of basic posters was higher in terms of absolute hits and footfall adjusted hits, however t-tests revealed not significantly greater for either data set.
It appears QR code posters placed at stops without a shelter receive higher QR code use
The average hit rate at stops without a shelter was substantially higher (28% greater usage) however due to insufficient without shelter stop numbers and footfall data this could not be formally tested.
There is substantial variation in use by area with the urban, university and interchange areas displaying much greater use that suburban areas.
This is true for absolute average hits per stop in given areas and even more pronounced when data is adjusted for footfall.
The presence of a display does not effect QR code use
Surprisingly the average footfall adjusted hit rate was not significantly higher for stops without a functioning display giving bus arrival times. This is supported by street survey data as respondents did not find wait time significantly more acceptable due to QR code use when a display was not available.
Use of the existing SMS arrival time service is low and could be redundant
None of the 67 street survey respondents used this service suggesting potential for replacement by essentially free and often real-time QR code provision.
The QR code system was easy to use
Eighty one percent of respondents found the system either very or quite easy to use.
Easy of use was not significantly influenced by smartphone ownership, however a significantly higher proportion of respondents aged over 40 found it more challenging.
Observed behavioural change was limited; the majority was in the form of utilisation of wait time.
Due to the methodology and high service frequencies the observed behavioural change was lower than previous studies. The only observed modifications were utilisation of wait time or going to a different stop. Further research is required.
System accuracy and reliability was adequate
Eighty eight percent of respondents believed the difference between their estimated and actual bus arrival times were less than the crucial 5 minutes. There were no system errors during demonstrations or from mobile survey comments and no vandalism occurred.
Arrival time provision through QR code use substantially improved the acceptability of wait time
Sixty five percent of respondents stated receiving wait times make their wait either much or a little more acceptable. There was no significant difference in the change of acceptability of wait time between respondents at stops with and without a display, frequent and infrequent travellers or passengers faced with a short and long wait.
QR code use lead to a valuable increase in feelings of safety
Thirty nine percent of respondents, mostly interviewed during daylight hours, felt safer after receiving wait times. A significantly higher proportion of female respondents exhibited positive changes in feelings of safety.
Potential patronage increases appear large although should be treated with caution
Fifty six percent of respondents stated they would be either a little or a lot more likely to use a bus as a result of QR code use. Previous studies reveal this is likely to substantially over-represent any resulting patronage change.
Knowledge of the difference between real-time and timetable arrival information is very poor and there could be substantial benefits from improving this knowledge
Only 10% of respondents knew the difference between timetable and real-time arrival times. Confidence in the system could potentially be greatly improved by informing passengers which times can be relied upon; confidence is an essential prerequisite for reaping the benefits RTI provision.
You can view the full report here: “An appraisal of QR code use to deliver bus arrival time information at bus stops in Southampton”
Return on Investment
by Christopher Gutteridge
This is something I’ve been banging on about all year. We all tell people that open data is a Good Thing, but we don’t really provide any rewards for it. Search engines do — if you mark up your pages maybe they will do something with your vocab.org content, maybe not.
RSS feeds also provide an immediate and understandable ROI, maybe less than they once did, but people see their data getting used, and can play with it in tools from the moment it goes live.
I’ve been thinking that what makes a lot of sense is to start creating little widgets and websites that provide value on top of RDF open data. To this end I’ve created a little service which provides a building location lookup for your website, given an RDF document containing a list of your buildings. The code is available on request but is still a bit hacky. I’ve some ideas to make it really exendable and do some stuff to make it easier to customise. It’s written using ARC2, Graphite and some javascript.
I actually thing the demonstrations below are a really big deal. It’s one tool which can provide a useful service on top of the RDF from three different organisations. This is what I want the future to look like! These can be embedded in your own pages in an iframe, but it’s a bit icky loading 4 google map iframes in one page.
- Southampton [raw data]
- Lincoln [raw data]
- Oxford [raw data]
- Tsinghau (China!) [raw data]
- Your university? (let me know when you publish the data and I’ll add you!)
Also get in touch, maybe via the comments, if you would like to publish open RDF data about your organisation’s places. It’s dead easy and all you need is a UNIXish (Linux or OSX) computer, a free tool (Grinder), and my example configuration files for places in grinder. Given that you can edit your list of buildings (and sites, and rooms…) in a spreadsheet and turn it into RDF data in minutes. Cheap, easy, and with an imediate Return On Investment. This is how Linked Data should be.
I’m even thinking about making a Grinder web service, so you just publish a speadsheet, and a configuration file and we spit out RDF for you…
Open Linked Catering
by Christopher Gutteridge
I’m excited that we’re about to launch the new university catering website, with added linked data features! These features show what the opening hours for points-of-service run by catering, including the halls, and also a product search which lets you search all products from the university (including those from other retailers).
“As a Caterer I am often quoting that ‘I bake bread, I don’t do IT!’ we like to keep it simple and this is exactly what Open data does for us. We can use formats and software we are used to and manage up to date real time information. This will ensure we are keeping customers up to date with information that they want. There is more to come as well and in Catering we have designed our whole web site and marketing strategy around the Open Data technology, watch this space Catering is catching up.”
– James Leeming
University of Southampton Retail Catering Manager
Visit our new catering site at: http://catering.southampton.ac.uk/