A. Misra, A. Gooze, K. Watkins, M. Asad, & C. A. Le Dantec. Crowdsourcing and Its Application to Transportation Planning. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. 2414:1–8, 2014.

Abstract

The participation of a large and a varied group of people in the planning process has long been encouraged as it increases the effectiveness and acceptability of plans. However, in practice, participation from affected stakeholders has often been limited to small groups both due to the lack of reach on the part of the planners and due to the lack of a feeling of ownership in the process on the part of citizens. Overcoming these challenges to stakeholder participation is particularly important for any transportation planning process, as the success of the system depends largely on its ability to cater to the requirements and preferences of the people it serves. Towards that goal, this paper proposes the use of crowdsourcing as a possible mechanism to involve a large group of stakeholders in transportation planning and operations. Crowdsourcing utilizes the collective wisdom of crowd to achieve a solution to a problem that affects the crowd. Multiple case studies are presented in this paper where crowdsourcing has been successfully used in collecting data from a wide range of stakeholders in transportation projects. Two distinct usage types are identified: using crowdsourcing for collecting normally sparse data on facilities like bike routes, and using crowdsourcing to solicit feedback on transit quality of service and real-time information quality. A final case study presented exemplifies the use of data quality auditors for ensuring usability of crowdsourced data, one of many potential issues in crowdsourcing that are presented in the paper. These case studies show that crowdsourcing has immense potential to replace or augment traditional ways of collecting data and feedback from a wider group of users without creating additional financial burden.