Social Media and Urban Mobility Choices: How a Transport-Related Content Could Be Influential in Social Media

Abstract

The emergence of social media resulted in a high number of people using them. Their flexibility makes them more popular compared to conventional methods of information sharing. Transport-related information can be shared cost-efficiently and timely on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The shared content’s form can be a text, a photo, or a video enabling more accurate transport-related information. The main objective of this study is to investigate to what extent social media have an impact on the mobility choices of people, filling the gap of previous studies that paid little attention to the influence of social media on transport-related purposes. A systematic literature review was performed in SCOPUS database to identify any record that is related to social media and urban mobility. Only records with an important and relevant contribution to the topic were kept. In addition, a thorough review of transport-related social media accounts and content was performed to investigate their influence. Social media metrics such as reactions, comments and shares of posts are measured to determine the real influence of the accounts and their content. The analysis ends up with an appropriate scheme and form of a transport-related account and content that would be more influential in today’s social media landscape.