Harnessing smartphone sensors for tracking location to support travel data collection

There has been growing interest in using smartphones for the collection of travel data. These devices are being used by an increasing proportion of the population overcoming one of the barriers to GPS travel surveys. Nonetheless, several barriers remain before smartphones can effectively replace dedicated GPS devices. This paper describes the development of a smartphone app that balances the need for quality data with battery life, which was used for a seven-day travel survey in Sydney, Australia. A stop-detection algorithm developed to automatically identify locations to study participants is discussed. The paper then compares the performance of the smartphone app with that of a widely-used GPS device, using data collected from the same trips during the seven-day travel survey. The results indicate that the smartphone app provides data of equal, and in many cases, better quality than the GPS device. This is particularly true in heavily built-up areas and on short trips, both situations in which GPS struggles to provide accurate data.