Where to find mobility related apps: designing an app directory. for mobility services

Transcription

1 22 nd ITS World Congress, Bordeaux, France, 5 9 October 2015 Paper number ITS-1800 Where to find mobility related apps: designing an app directory for mobility services Yanying Li 1* 1. ERTICO ITS Europe, Avenue Louise 326, Brussels, Belgium, 1050 Tel: ; y.li@mail.ertico.com Abstract The smartphone market has been growing extremely fast in the last few years. The number of smartphone applications (apps) has also been increasing significantly. Many apps are related to transport and mobility services. This paper proposes an online directory which lists apps related to transport and mobility services in order to allow users to quickly find an app they need. Users of the app directory are app developers and end users. Questionnaire surveys were conducted. Results show that 2/3 of end users would like to have a dedicated app directory and only 6.5% would not like to have such directory. 90.5% of end users would like apps in the app directory to be presented by city or region. End users would like to search the app directory based on city or geographical coverage and mode of transport. The paper analyses user requirements and defines basic functions and user interfaces. Keywords: Mobile App, App Directory, Mobility Service 1. Introduction Smartphone market has been growing extremely fast in the last few years. In the first quarter of 2014, the global smartphone market grew 28.6 year over year [1]. Smartphone has not only changed the way of people communicate with each other but also has a big impact on people s lifestyle and the society as a whole. Smartphone has become one of the main devices to be used to go online, e.g. to browse internet and to exchange s. Associated with the fast growth of the smartphone, applications operated on smartphone operating systems, also known as apps, have become increasingly important in people s daily life. The number of available apps has grown significantly. In 2014, there are 1.3 million apps available in Google Play and 1.2 million apps [2] s available in Apple App Store. Of all the apps, about 4.8% are travel apps and 1.3% navigation apps. That means that about 62,400 travel apps are available in Google Play or 15,600 navigation apps are available in Apple App

2 Store. Apps are often designed to provide real time information. Since many apps use location information of smartphone, apps have the unique feature to provide information based on users current location. Therefore, use of apps for traveller information has huge advantages, comparing with traditional ways of traveller information services [3][4]. Apps can also be used to provide many innovative mobility services which are not feasible without mobile devices. A notable example is Uber taxi service which uses a smartphone app to receive ride requests, then sends these trip requests to their drivers. Customers use the app to request rides and track their reserved vehicle s location. Although there are many apps related to mobility services are available, it is not so easy for travellers to find them. For example, Google Play and Apple App Store do not facilitate specific search such as transport services in a city. Therefore, there may be a need to have an online based directory for mobility service apps which can list all available apps related to mobility services, enabling users to find apps needed easily. It also aims to encourage app developers to develop more mobility related apps and promote usages of apps for mobility services. This paper presents results of the first survey on users needs for the app directory. Based on the users needs, functionality of the app directory will be defined. Functions for app developers and end users are analyses. To make such online directory economically sustainable, a potential business model is also proposed based on the survey results. The results presented in this paper are a part of requirement studies for the MOBiNET project which is a EC funded FP7 project on mobility services. 2. Review of State-of-the-art 2.1 App Stores Since an app can only be operated in a certain operation system, each app store is dedicated specifically for an operation system. There are four main Operating Systems (OS) for mobile devices which account for more than 99% of the total market share [2]. Each operating system has its own app store. Each app store is also owned and operated by the owner of the operating system. However, there is an exception, i.e. Amazon App Store. The Amazon App Store is an app store for Android operating system and operated by Amazon. The four operating systems, their market share, app store and the number of available apps in each app store are shown in Table1. Market share shown in the table is data in Q3 in 2014 [2] and numbers of apps are data in July

3 Table 1 - Mobile Operation Systems and their app stores Operating System Market share App Store Number of apps Android 84.4% Google Play 1,300,000 Amazon appstore 240,000 ios 11.7% Apple App Store 1,200,000 Windows 2.9% Windows Phone Store 300,000 Blackberry 0.5% Blackberry World 130,000 There are many third party app stores available. For example, AppsLib, a Hong Kong based Android app market place, has 38,771 apps listed. The number of apps is relatively small, comparing with main stream app stores. Moreover, although apps in AppsLib are Android apps, they may only work on mobile devices from certain manufacturers. Some third party app stores often aim to provide services to smaller manufactures. For example, Appslib is present on over 2 million Android tablets from a range of manufacturers including Archos, Arnova and Naxa among many others 1. If a user is installing an app to his mobile device from an app store which is not officially appointed by the mobile device manufacturer, the user will be informed that this app is not from official app store and there is a risk on security and will be asked if the user wants to continue. The user then need to enable Unknown Sources, found normally under Setting > Security. Only after the user allows the unknown source to be installed in his mobile device, the app can be installed. Therefore, security is a key concern for any third party app stores. Any app stores must ensure security in order to gain trust from users. Since the concern on security and inconvenience of installing an app from non-official app stores, a third party app store for mobility services may not be realist. Therefore, the MOBiNET project proposed to build an App Directory which will provide list of apps, description of each app and where to download the app. 2.2 To Find An App in App Stores App stores are organised by categories. Common categories in app stores are Games, Education, Business, Lifestyle, Entertainment etc. In Google Play there are two categories related to mobility services - Transportation, Travel & Local. In Apple App Store two categories related to mobility services are Travel and Navigation. If taking Google Play as example, when select category of transportation, Google Play automatically recommends several apps related to the users location. For example, the author tried in Brussels, the 1 According to at 3

4 recommended transportation apps are shown in Figure 1: Figure 1 - Top Transportation Apps in Google Play when the device is based in Brussels The top transportation apps are all transport services in Brussels. However, if a traveller would like to find mobility service apps in other cities he would need to use search function. When using transport in Brussels to search Google Play, the result of the search is shown in Figure 2. It can be seen that results from such a general search may be not specific enough for a traveller who has no knowledge about the local transport network. This may make the traveller difficult to find the appropriate apps they look for. Figure 2 - Search result of Transport in Brussels in Google Play 4

5 Therefore, a dedicated app directory which gives a comprehensive list of mobility service apps would help travellers to find apps they need. Since many apps are related to sustainable transport modes such as public transport, bicycles and walking, such app directory would not only improve travellers experiences but also play a role in mode shift towards more sustainable transport. 3. User Survey 3.1 Methodology There are two groups of users of the proposed app directory: - App developers who will register their apps in the app directory - End users or travellers who use apps Questionnaires were used to survey users option. A questionnaire for app developers included questions such as if they will to register their apps on such an app store, what are the key functions for app developers, how to search in the app directory etc. It was difficult to recruit app developers. The European Congress 2013 held in Helsinki organised an App Contest. All app developers who participated in the App Contest received invitation to fill in the online the questionnaire through . However, only 9 of them participated in the survey. Despite the rather small sample size, the results may still give a general idea on app developers views on this subject. End users were recruited through the author s Facebook friends. The author also asked her friends to share the link of the online questionnaire in order to recruit the maximum number of participants. In total 78 users conducted the survey. 3.2 App Developers Views Of the 9 app developers conducting the survey, five of them would like to have an app directory for mobility service and are willing to register their apps in the service directory and four developers were not sure. Whether or not to register an app depends on a number of factors. Cost and interfaces are the two factors rank as the top factors for develop to decide if they register an app or not. All the factors and their ranks are shown in Table 2. Table 2 - Factors influencing app developers to register their apps Rank Factors 1 Cost Quality of interface to app developers 2 Quality of interface to end users 3 Existing apps in the app directory (what kind of apps and who are the app owners) Number of visitors of the app directory 4 Number of apps in the app directory 5

6 All app developers would like to see apps to be presented by city or regions as the primary way. Only two app developers would like to see apps to be presented by mode and similar functionalities (e.g. parking service). This may be explained as that since most existing apps for mobility services are related to a specific city not all app developers realise that some apps may not be related to a certain area but have a wider coverage, e.g. pan-european coverage. Search function is essential for the app directory. The app directory must be searched by the following functions, as shown in Table 3. Table 3 App Developers Views on Search functions Search function Response percent City/region 100% Transport mode 57% Key word of functionality 57% App developer 28% Price 14% Essential information needed when registering an app is shown in Table 4. Table 2 - Essential information for registering an app What kind of information is essential when registering Response percent your App to the App Directory? Logo of the app 100% Description of the app 100% Screen shots of the app 86% Price of the app 86% Link to an app store where the app can be downloaded 86% The majority would like the app directory to provide end users rating and comments. However, when being asked whether the app directory should give exactly the same information as the mainstream app stores, only 2 developers agree and the rest would like to see different way to present apps. 3.3 End users views End users were recruited through the author s Facebook friends. The author also asked her friends to share the link of the online questionnaire in order to recruit the maximum number of participants. In total 78 users conducted the survey. Since the recruitment was through Facebook, all survey subjects use social network and 100% of them own a smart phone. Of them, 60% are Android smartphone, 36% are iphone and 6.6% are Microsoft mobile phone. The percentage of iphone ownership is higher than the current market share. The reason may 6

7 be the survey subjects have higher incomes than average. All survey subjects have installed and use apps for mobility services in their smartphones. The most common apps used by the survey subjects are Google Map, Google Transit, HERE Map, HERE TRANSIT, train information in residence country, e.g. Deutsch Bahn (DB) Navigator, as well as public transport apps in the residence city, e.g. STIB in Brussels. The survey subjects cover a wide range of age group from years old. However, there is no significant difference in results among different age groups. Similar to app developers, majority of end users would also like apps to be presented in the app directory by city/region and about half would like apps to be presented by transport mode as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 - End users views on how to present apps in the App Directory Search function is essential. The app directory should be search city or geographic coverage as well mode of transport. Very few would like to search the app directory by price of apps. Please see results in Figure 4. Figure 4 - End users views on how to search the app directory 34% of end users would like to have the function of the app director recommending apps. End users would like the application to recommend apps based on their locations. Very few would 7

8 like the app recommend apps based on their profile. Please see results in Figure 4. Figure 5 - End users views on how the App Directory to recommend apps 4. Proposed functionalities of the app directory Based on the review of state-of-the art of app store market and the survey results, the app directory should have the interfaces: - Interface to app developers; - Interface to end users. 4.1 Interface for app developers Interface to app developers should include: - Registration page: an app developer must register to able to use the app directory; - App registration page: an app developer uses the page to register an app; - App editing page: an app developer uses the page to edit an existing an app; Registration page will ask the following information: - Full name; - Company name (optional); - Developer name to be shown on the App Directory (associated with an app registered); - address; - Contact details; - Passwords When an app developer has registered to the system, he/she can log in and register an app. Since only the app owner can register an app, the app registration page will ask the user to confirm that the user is the app owner. App registration page should include the following 8

9 information: - Logo(to upload a picture) - Name of the app; - Description; - Screen shots of the app(to upload pictures) - Price; - Language; - Modes of transport (the app developer must show if the app is related to mobility) - Platform (Android, ios ) - Where to find the app; - Confirming ownership of the app; - App developer s name shown on the description (default as the registered name) When an app developer logs in the system, he/she should be able to see all apps he/she registered. He/she can click to go to the same interface of registration to edit any of the registered apps. He/she can also delete an app. 4.2 Interface for end users An end user can access the app directory through a webpage or a smartphone app. An end user can use the app directory with or without registration. When a user registers to the app directory, the system will ask question such as: preferred languages, preferred modes, residence country or city. Such information will be used for recommending suitable apps to end users. An end user can browse the list of apps based on: - City/region; - Transport mode. An end user can also search the app directory based on city, region, transport mode and other key words. An end user can check information about an app include: name, logo, screen shots, price, language, price, owner of the app and where to find the app. Location where the app can be downloaded must be provided to end users to enable end users directly find the app in the corresponding app stores without additional search. 4.3 Generating statistics The app directory should be free of charge for end users. App developers should also be able to register apps free-of-charge. The system should be able to generate statistics of usage of the app directory, for example, how many people read the description of an app and click the link to the app store. The system should be able to know how many times a key word has been used for search. The system should be able to link a user s profile with his/her use behaviour. For example, a traveller is searching for what kind of app. Such statistics have a potential to generate revenue from the app directory without direct charge to either app developers or end 9

10 users. However, business model to make the app directory economically sustainable is not in the scope of this paper. 5. Challenges and open questions The proposed functions of the app directory were defined based on review of the state-of-the-art and user need surveys. However, there are still many open questions related to the functions of the app directory. One question is that should quality of apps registered in the app directory be checked. In another word, should the app directory accept all apps? It is obvious that an app registered in the app directory must be mobility related. The app directory can reject any apps that are not related to mobility services. If quality is checked, a potential advantage of the app directory is that the app directory would only list good quality apps that can save users to evaluate each app themselves, thus to attract more end users as well as app developers. Since the business model is not clear, information required for registration and what kind of data collected from using the app directory is not clear. In theory, only app developers can register an app. However, since the app directory does not require any technical and confidential information when an app is registered. Technically, everyone can register an app. How to ensure only genuine information in the app directory is a challenge. 6. Conclusions Since smartphone market has been growing extremely fast in the last few years and there are many smartphone applications (apps) related to mobility services are available. This paper analyses the needs for an app directory dedicated to mobility services. The app directory is not an app store, i.e. it does not host apps but only information about apps, in order to avoid competitions with mainstream app stores such as Google Play and to minimise security risk. The paper reviews the current app stores and their functions of search and users interface. A questionnaire survey was conducted to survey users needs. Users of the app directory are end users and app developers. For app developers, the questionnaire was distributed to app developers who participated in the App Contest in ITS European Congress in app developers were surveyed. For end users, the questionnaire was distributed through Facebook. 78 participated in the end user survey. All survey subjects own a smartphone and all of them use apps for mobility services. Results show that app developers are willing to register their apps. The top factors to influence their decision are cost and interfaces to app developers. Therefore, the app directory will be free-of-charge for app developers to register theirs apps and the interface to app developers should be simply and easy to use. When an app developer 10

11 is registering an app, the developer should provide logo, name, description, screen shots, language of the app, platform, where to download the app etc. Both app developers and end users would like apps to be presented by city/region. The app directory is then to provide a list of apps based on city/region. The app directory may also present apps based on different modes of transport. Searching functions are essential. End users would like to search the app directory based on city/region, mode of transport and other key words. The app directory should have functions to generate statistics of usage of the app directory. Such statistics have potential to generate revenue from the app directory without direct charge to either app developers or end users. There are some challenges and open questions related to quality assurance and business models which will be the next of this research. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank everyone who conducted the survey. The author would like to thank her colleagues Julie Castermans, Amanda Strevens and Pamela Valente for helping dissemination of the questionnaire. The work presented in this paper is a part of the MOBiNET project, a research and development project co-funded by the European Commission through the 7th Framework (FP7). The author thanks the financial support from European Commission and all consortium members of the MOBiNET project. References 1. IDC (2014), Press Release: Worldwide Smartphone Market Grows 28.6% Year Over Year in the First Quarter of 2014, According to IDC, available at 2. Statista (2014), Number of app available in leading app stores in 2014, available at 3. Watkins K. E., Ferris B., Borning A. etc (2011). Where is my bus? Impact of mobile real-time information on the perceived and actual wait time of transit riders, Transportation Research Part A vol. 45, pp Brakewood C., Barbeau S. and Watkins K (2014). An experiment evaluating the impacts of real-time transit information on bus riders in Tampa, Florida, Transportation Research Part A vol.69, pp