An Innovative Way to Promote Walking via a Smartphone Pedestrian Navigation Application

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which people are prepared to use a smartphone navigation application to enhance their walking experience. The proposed smartphone app, which is based on a Smart Pedestrian Network (SPN) system would provide various incentives to promote walkability. In the research presented in this paper we attempt to answer questions such as: Would people walk more if they were rewarded by using the app? Can the proposed app motivate people to walk more by: providing navigation information, tracking peoples' steps, setting daily challenges and goals and giving rewards? To what extent can the proposed app support its users to become healthier and at the same time improve environmental conditions? For this purpose, a survey was conducted in Cyprus involving a representative sample of people. After data collection, statistical analysis was carried out in IBM SPSS software package. The results of the survey showed that apart from navigation information, providing rewards would motivate people to walk more. Specifically, 42% preferred their reward to be monetary while 39% would accept their reward to be donated for charity. Additionally, the majority of respondents would not only use but also recommend the proposed application to others.