Exploring the capacity of social media data for modelling travel behaviour: Opportunities and challenges

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Taha H. Rashidi - , University of New South Wales (Author)
  • Alireza Abbasi - , University of New South Wales (Author)
  • Mojtaba Maghrebi - , Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (Author)
  • Samiul Hasan - , University of Central Florida (Author)
  • Travis S. Waller - , Chair of Transport Modelling and Simulation, University of New South Wales (Author)

Abstract

In the past few years, the social science literature has shown significance attention to extracting information from social media to track and analyse human movements. In this paper the transportation aspect of social media is investigated and reviewed. A detailed discussion is provided about how social media data from different sources can be used to indirectly and with minimal cost extract travel attributes such as trip purpose, mode of transport, activity duration and destination choice, as well as land use variables such as home, job and school location and socio-demographic attributes including gender, age and income. The evolution of the field of transport and travel behaviour around applications of social media over the last few years is studied. Further, this paper presents results of a qualitative survey from travel demand modelling experts around the world on applicability of social media data for modelling daily travel behaviour. The result of the survey reveals positive view of the experts about usefulness of such data sources.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)197-211
Number of pages15
JournalTransportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies
Volume75
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2017
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-2939-2090/work/141543748

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

Keywords

  • Mobility behaviour, Social media, Travel demand modelling, Travel diary survey