Börjesson Rivera, Miriam
Henriksson, Greger
Åkerlund, Maria

Title

Getting there and back again – Commuting and ICT in six cities across the globe

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm.
ISSN:1654-479X, TRITA-SUS 2012:1

Summary

Ericsson ConsumerLab performed a qualitative exploratory study of how people experience daily commuting in three different countries. This report aims to present the outcome of the study in such a way that the data can be useful for further analyses and studies of commuting in relation to ICT use and environmental sustainability. Based on the study’s findings this report will present analytical data on: i) how ICT can be linked to everyday travel in order to facilitate commuting from the user’s point of view; and ii) how ICT solutions can enable commuting in an environmentally more sustainable way.

The study, which had an ethnographic approach, showed that in general, commuters would like their commuting time to be, or at least seem, as short as possible. The respondents spend hours commuting every week and often claim to consider it a waste of time. Regardless of means of transport, they would like to get the most out of their commuting time (working, socialising, relaxing etc.), which implies that there is a demand for further technological improvements in this area (voice recognition services in cars, privacy settings in public transport, connectivity in public transport, etc.). An aspect that adds to how people perceive their commuting time concerns the extent to which its duration is predictable – even if the time cannot be shortened, commuters at least want to know how much time they will spend on their daily commute, so that they can plan their day with more certainty.

Irrespective of means of transport, two major frustrations for commuters are lack of flow and the presence and behaviour of other people. People seem to lack good real-time information enabling them to avoid interruptions in their commute and much of their frustration relates to poor infrastructure conditions and management. Frustration with other people derives from their conduct in traffic contributing to inconveniences, congestion or hazards, or from noise, smell or littering on public transport.

The greatest motivators for commuting by car are a feeling of independence in relation to other people, schedule and choice of route, and the private space the car offers. This means that the car provides flexibility in terms of when and how people travel, while also providing a private space both mentally (“in the car you can do whatever you want”) and physically (“you don’t have to hustle with others on the bus or train”). The major frustration when commuting by car is the need to focus on driving, so drivers cannot utilise time as they would wish.
People generally justify their choice of public transport by anti-car arguments, which include difficulty in finding a parking space at work, expensive parking, fear of driving, lack of driving licence etc., but can also motivate their choice as giving them ‘me-time’ without having to focus on driving. The major frustration with commuting by public transport is dependency on time schedules and the shortcomings of the public transport network. This is exacerbated by a lack of relevant information or available options. However, commuting can be improved in a variety of ways for car and public transport users with the help of ICT. From a sustainability perspective, it is important to exploit the potential of ICT solutions to facilitate more environmentally friendly practices.

Many of the ICT (Information Communication Technology) solutions identified in this report require reliable access to the internet and/or mobile phone network. The mobile phone is currently the single most important internet device while commuting, thus perhaps being the point of departure for many of the solutions, such as travel planner, ticketing options, etc, but for car users mobile phone services need to be adapted through better in-car voice recognition technologies, since the focus needs to be on driving. Current information services could be more personalised and contextualised in order to better suit the individual driver and most of these ICT solutions and services are also applicable to public transport commuters, but an additional function for such commuters could be some kind of ‘emergency button’ on mobile phones to increase their sense of security in travel.

Home office solutions are a way of avoiding the frustrations of commuting altogether. While working from home is regarded by some with ambivalence and is impossible for many, there are ways of refining these solutions.

Download report

Anna Kramers, Örjan Svane

Title

ICT applications for energy efficiency in buildings

Published in

Report from the KTH Centre for Sustainable Communications, Stockholm.
ISSN:1654-479X, TRITA-SUS 2011:3

Download report

Miguel-Angel Sicilia, Hannes Ebner, Salvador Sánchez-Alonso, Fernando Álvarez, Alberto Abián, Elena García-Barriocanal

Title

Navigating learning resources through linked data: A preliminary report on the re-design of Organic.Edunet

Published in

Proceedings of Linked Learning 2011: the 1st International Workshop on eLearning Approaches for the Linked Data Age, co-located with the 8th Extended Semantic Web Conference, ESWC2011, Heraklion, Greece, May 29, 2011.

Abstract

Learning objects repositories have grown and matured in the last years, being currently a cornerstone for open education. Several current systems are offering metadata openly through mainstream harvesting protocols or providing standardized query interfaces. Also, the use of standardized vocabularies or ontologies is becoming more common to provide a degree of semantic interoperability. However, learning object metadata is typically not linked across repositories, and it is not providing a way to navigate by using other sources of data available on the Web. The linked open data (LOD) approach provides the framework for the evolution of learning object repositories into a more flexible system of sharing learning resource metadata. This paper describes how linked data has been integrated in the design and redesign of the export mechanisms of Organic.Edunet, a federation of learning repositories in the domain of organic agriculture that uses an RDF store and several ontologies to browse and search resources. The paper focuses on how the existing search and semantic browsing mechanisms can benefit from the use of LOD across repositories.

Carina Weingaertner, Åsa Moberg

Title

Exploring Social Sustainability: Learning from Perspectives on Urban Development and Companies and Products.

Published in

Sustainable Development (2011),  doi: 10.1002/sd.536

Abstract

There is a fragmented approach to social sustainability in the literature, and this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the meanings and interpretations of that concept while reviewing and discussing the social dimension of sustainability from the perspectives of two fields: urban development as well as companies and products. The analysis identifies commonalities and differences in the understanding of the conceptualization of social sustainability and helps to identify core aspects that cross disciplinary boundaries. The paper shows that compiling a list of comprehensive aspects that is representative of social sustainability is not straightforward, as interpretations are context dependant and aspects are often closely interconnected. Differences often occur because of variations in scoping and context, or whether or not a life cycle perspective is used. Nonetheless, there seems to be an underlying common understanding of what social sustainability is, and a set of key themes (social capital, human capital and well-being) is suggested as an alternative to put more specific measures and indicators in perspective. However, context-specific information is still necessary in practical applications.

View article

Jorge Luis Zapico
Bianca Sayan
Leonardo Bonanni
Marko Turpeinen
Steve Young

Title

Footprinted.org: Experiences from using linked open data for environmental impact information

Published in

Pillmann, W., Schade, S., and Smits, P. (Eds.) (2011) Proceedings of the 25th EnviroInfo Conference – Innovations in Sharing Environmental Observations and Information. Schaker-Verlag, Aachen, Germany.

Downlaod article

Marcus Nyberg, Cristian Norlin,  Peter Gomez (Ericsson Research)

Title

Using physical objects to enable enriched video communication (2011)

Published in

Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI ’11). ACM, New York, USA, p 529-532. doi:10.1145/2037373.2037454

Abstract

This paper describes an exploratory concept for how video communication can address the potential collaboration opportunities (and challenges) that arise with an emerging networked society in which the “material” to be used in the collaboration no longer is restrained to simple presentations, but can include services, Internet enabled objects, and many other types of systems and features. The concept illustrates how tangible objects can be utilized as props for the interaction and collaboration, and as access points to services, functionality and information. The findings from a qualitative user study suggest that this contributes to creating a form of collaboration in which technology is less visible and the actual meeting between humans becomes more significant. The user study also showed the importance of security and trust for such a system to work.

View article

Malin Picha
Minna Räsänen

Title

Ny teknik som förändrar vår möteskultur

Published in

Framtider 2/2011

Download article

Greger Henriksson
Olle Hagman
Håkan Andréasson

Title

Environmentally Reformed Travel Habits During the 2006 Congestion Charge Trial in Stockholm – A Qualitative Study (2011)

Published in

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 8(8):3202-3215. doi:10.3390/ijerph8083202

Abstract

Policy measures that reduce or replace road traffic can improve environmental conditions in most large cities. In Stockholm a congestion charge was introduced during a test period in 2006. This was a full-scale trial that proved to meet its targets by reducing traffic crossing the inner city segment during rush hours by 20%. Emissions of carbon dioxide and particles were also substantially reduced. This study, based on in-depth interviews with 40 inhabitants, analyses how and why new travel habits emerged. The results show that particular, sometimes unexpected, features of everyday life (habits, resources, opportunities, values, etc.) were crucial for adjustment of travel behaviour in relation to the policy instrument. One example was that those accustomed to mixing different modes of transport on a daily basis more easily adapted their travel in the targeted way. On a more general level, the results revealed that the policy measure could actually tip the scales for the individual towards trying out a new behaviour.

View article

Bonanni, L., Ebner, H., Hockenberry, M., Sayan, B., Brandt, N., Csikszentmihàlyi, N., Ishii, H., Turpeinen, M., Young, S., Zapico, J.L.

Title

Sourcemap.org: First Application of Linked and Open LCA Data to Support Sustainability

Published in

Poster presented at International Conference on Industrial Ecology 7-10 June 2011, Berkely 2011.

Download poster

Mattias Höjer
Anders Gullberg
Ronny Pettersson

Title
Images of the Future City – Time and Space For Sustainable Development

Published in

Springer 2011, ISBN 978-94-007-0652-1