The design and implementation of serious games for driving and mobility

The automotive and transportation sectors are showing consistent improvements in trends and standards concerning the safe and convenient travel of the road users. In this growing community of road users, the driver performance is a notable factor as many on-road mishaps emerge out of poor driver performance. In this research work, a case-study and experimental analysis were conducted to improve driver performance through the deployment of serious games. The primary motive of this work is to stimulate the on-road user performance through immediate feedback, driver coaching, and real-time gamification methods. The games exploit the cloud-based architecture to retrieve the driver performance scores based on real-time evaluation of vehicle signals and display the outcomes on game scene by reflecting the game parameters based on real-world user performance (in the context of driving and mobility). The deployment of games in cars is the topic of interest in current state-of-the-art, as there are more factors associated with it, such as safety, usability, and willingness of the users. These aspects were taken into careful consideration while designing the paradigm of gamification model. The user feedback for the real-time games was extracted through pilot tests and field tests in Genova. The gamification and driver coaching aspects were tested on various occasions (plug-in and field tests conducted at 5 European test sites), and the inputs from these field tests enabled to tune the parameters concerning the evaluation and gamification models. The improvement of user behavior was performed through a virtuous cycle with the integration of virtual sensors to the serious gaming framework. As the culmination, the usability tests for the real-time games were conducted with 18 test users to understand the user acceptance criteria and the parameters (ease of use and safety) that would contribute to the deployment of games. Other salient factors such as the impact of games, large-scale deployment, collaborative gaming and exploitation of gaming framework for 3rd party applications were also investigated in this research activity. The analysis of the usability tests states that the user acceptance of the implemented games is good. The report from usability study has addressed the user preferences in games such as duration, strategy and gameplay mechanism; these factors contribute a foundation for future research in implementing the games for mobility

Assessment of Driver Behavior Based on Machine Learning Approaches in a Social Gaming Scenario

The estimation of user performance analytics in the area of car driver performance was carried out in this paper. The main focus relies on the descriptive analysis with our approaches emphasizing on educational serious games, in order to improvise the driver\u2019s behavior (specifically green driving) in a pleasant and challenging way. We also propose a general Internet of the Things (IoT) social gaming platform (SGP) concept that could be adaptable and deployable to any kind of application domain. The social gaming scenario in this application enables the users to compete with peers based on their physical location. The efficient drivers will be awarded with virtual coins and gained virtual coins can be used in real world applications (such as purchasing travel tickets, reservation of parking lots, etc.). This research work is part of TEAM project co-funded within the EU FP7 ICT research program

User Preferences for a Serious Game to Improve Driving

As automotive games are gaining interest, there is a lack in literature on specifications, user needs and requirements. We collected information from potential users on some basic features about two types of games for improving the driver performance: driver games and passenger games. In a survey with 18 respondents, both the typologies have been considered appealing, with drivers more interested in assessing performance and having suggestions, passengers in having fun. The greatest difference involves the requirement that a driver game should avoid distraction. Thus, the set-up phase should be doable when the vehicle is stopped, the visual feedback, if any, should be very limited (e.g., color spots), and most of the feedback should be provided through the audio channel. Passenger games might have more complex plots, with chance factors, and also support social interaction, for instance with passengers of other vehicles

Deployment of serious gaming approach for safe and sustainable mobility

The transportation sector is expanding its trends in accessibility, connectivity, and mobility for making the road travel as safe and convenient. Now with Services like car sharing, car pooling and rides there are new effective ways to reach the desired destination. But due to comfort reasons most of the car owners will use their car to navigate from point A to B, without caring about the pollution they produce. In this paper we describe a game based approach for motivating people to drive in a safe and environment-friendly way. The approach of this paper will allow people to measure their driving behavior within a game. The points earned in the game can not only be used for the comparison with peers but also to obtain monetary benefits in different stores

A Gamified Flexible Transportation Service for On-Demand Public Transport

Present public transport services still suffer from issues such as time deviations from the static timetable, overcrowded buses, increased on board time, and long wait at bus stops. This work studies the experimental implementation of an on-demand public bus transportation service in Trikala, a medium-sized Greek city. With a view to optimize the service from both the operator's and the citizens' point of view, this paper presents an insertion heuristic solving the static multivehicle dial-a-ride problem with time windows and a fixed fleet of vehicles. Since viability of such a service depends on its ability of involving a significant number of users and getting reliable information, we tested a gamification layer, aimed at motivating public transport users to participate and behave correctly with the system. We present and discuss a novel pervasive computing architecture and various types of serious games designed to achieve these goals. We finally report early usability test results and some simulation-based indications on the design of city-scale deployable serious games to enhance public transport-based mobility

TEAM applications for Collaborative Road Mobility

The TEAM industrial research project developed eleven collaborative mobility apps addressing various traffic issues and scenarios. The apps, involving different aspects and degrees of collaboration (e.g., direct user participation, shared objectives, coordination), aim at increasing the driver/traveler awareness and support a better behavior. This paper describes the apps and the underlying system architecture shared by the participating car manufacturers. Then, it provides a user acceptance analysis grouping the apps according to the three main types of users and stakeholders: drivers, travelers and administrators/operators. Data, collected in five European countries, shows that acceptance and expected impact is positive. The actual road-test experience did not diminish the high expectations raised by an initial presentation on paper, showing a good maturity of the prototypes. The Administrator app cluster shows a slightly better assessment, highlighting the importance of considering collaborative mobility as a system, including road, infrastructure and traffic management