Using smartphone logging to gain insight about phone use in traffic

Abstract

The prevalence of mobile phone usage in traffic has been studied by road-side counting, naturalistic driving data, surveillance cameras, smartphone logging, and subjective estimates via surveys. Here, we describe a custom-made smartphone logging application along with suggestions on how future such applications should be designed. The developed application logs’ start and end times of all phone interactions (mobile phone applications, incoming/outgoing phone calls and text messages, audio output, and screen activations). In addition, all movements are automatically classified into transport, cycling, walking, running, or stationary. The capabilities of the approach are demonstrated in a pilot study with 143 participants. Examples of results that can be gained from smartphone logging include prevalence in different transportation modes (here found to be 12% while driving, 4% while cycling, and 7% while walking), which apps are being used (here found to be 19% navigation, 12% talking, 12% social media, and 10% games) and on which road types (rural, urban, highway etc.). Smartphone logging was found to be an insightful complement to the other methods for assessing phone use in traffic, especially since it allows the analyses of which apps are used and where they are used, split into transportation mode and road type, all at a relatively low cost.