An app for rating public transport in real time

EPFL researchers have developed a smartphone app for passengers to evaluate their experience in real time and view other users' ratings. It will be tested this fall by Lausanne's public transport authority. Getting useful feedback from users is often a complex undertaking, especially when it comes to public transport. Social media may have given people a forum, but their comments are often too fragmented, infrequent or heated to have any practical value. EPFL researchers have now come up with an app that public transport authorities can use to survey passengers in real time through a series of interactive questions. Month-long tests of the new app - called Urban Mobility by Me, or UrbyMe - will begin today in partnership with Transports Lausannois (tl), the Lausanne region's public transport authority. "The advantage of real-time surveys is that we can get an instantaneous snapshot of the user and ask the right question at the right time," says Fernando Simas, a researcher in EPFL's Urban Sociology Laboratory.