T2 – Getting It Home

In order to develop a successful municipal roadway transportation network, it must be developed around the needs and tendencies of those using it. Otherwise, scenarios such as slow travel time, packed parking lots, and traffic jams will arise.

It is only possible to predict these needs and tendencies by surveying the public and drawing conclusions based on the results. One of the most common reasons for transport is goods acquisition, that is, bringing goods from retail stores or restaurants and taking them home. The project has designed a survey to track the individual tendencies and behaviours concerning goods behaviour in the city of Edmonton.

The results and considerations from our survey data will be inputted into future City of Edmonton roadway models. This will ensure the Edmonton roadways will be designed the most effective way for the people who are using it most.

Our design incorporates many innovative aspects within the survey primarily related to the collection of the stated preference data. In traditional travel monitoring surveys, stated preference data is collected from a simple question where someone would compare how they travelled or purchased something with another scenario that has some changed variables. This is usually done by comparing 1 or 2 of these alternative scenarios at a time. Our design displays 4 total alternatives, including what the participant actually did, of which the participant would drag and drop to order them. They would place the most preferred option on the very top to the least preferred at the bottom. This allows collection of the stated preference data in a very efficient manner as the users can compare these alternatives in a very user friendly interface. This is also very efficient in that it allows the comparison of  4 alternatives and thus the impact of 4 different variables in one question.

Our design is also able to measure the impact of COVID-19 on how people in Edmonton purchase and get their goods delivered. Rather than just having a generic question asking users how COVID-19 has impacted their choices or if it has changed their behaviour, our question takes them through the stated preference questions in the present time and then the following questions asks them to imagine COVID-19 was not present and to reorder these alternative scenarios. We are able to directly compare their actions now vs pre-COVID and thus we are able to treat and measure COVID-19 as a variable in purchasing and delivering goods to their home. This systematic approach could also be a template for future pandemics or events that greatly impact travel behaviour.

To ensure the survey is effective, the group continually collaborated with industrial and academic supervisors, and also took advantage of external resources, such as HostedInCanada Surveys. Below are some of the considerations taken during the survey design process to ensure an effective design. 

Since the survey will help the City of Edmonton advance its transportation system, we designed questions that are specific to Edmonton travellers, such as questions regarding the “Light Rail Transit (LRT) system”. We are also collecting information from one of the most committed groups in Edmonton, the volunteer Edmonton Insight Group. Members of this group consistently show their interest in public development, so we have very minimal concerns regarding quality of responses..

Our survey also breaks shopping trips into five categories, which were carefully discussed between the group, advisors, and external mentors to ensure they cover all potential shopping experiences. We also ask specific questions to compare shopping habits with and without the presence of COVID-19. Upon analyzing all survey responses, our data should represent many diverse scenarios.

Finally, the survey has passed a full ethics-review from the University of Calgary. This means that all of the questions shown in the survey should be ethical, effective, and critical. We have modified any questions that may potentially confuse participants – so the survey will be very straightforward and reasonably segmented once it is administered.

We’ve validated our design solution by using a four step approach. 

First, while designing the survey, we constantly checked if there were any minor errors in terms of grammar, misspelling etc. We also met once a week with our advisors to fix any errors and make modifications. Examples of these modifications include adding missing choices of transportation or changing the question styles to fit the survey better.

After the initial design, we had a meaningful discussion with both our academic and industry advisors. We presented our design and were provided with their insights and feedback. For example, as a result of this discussion, we added the “Electronics” section into our survey to cover more shopping areas. We also doubled the stated preference questions to make the survey more comprehensive. 

We then moved to quality checking our final design, this included reviewing any particular ethical considerations we need to add, any language complication we can ease, and potential coding errors. We also discussed risks of our projects during this process. 

Finally, our team presented the survey design to individuals at the City of Edmonton and received positive feedback that encouraged our team to file the UCalgary ethics application and publish the survey for initial beta testing. We continue to monitor the survey and fix any new errors that appear before it is officially sent to the Edmonton Insight Community.

Our completed survey design, which includes the questions and all the logical flow, can be used to analyze the shopping behaviours in a city similar to Edmonton. Considering COVID-19 is a global pandemic, most places that are more technologically advanced will be able to adapt the survey to identify the different tendencies that changed in most individual shopping behaviours. 

We gather data in two different ways; The first is by asking about a recent purchase, which helps us discern a person’s shopping behaviours. The other way is by asking stated preference questions, this allows us to see which aspects of a trip had more influence in comparison to others. For example, if free shipping is more important than an overall discount on an item. Using these two basic concepts, we will be able to better understand the shopping behaviours of the citizens of Edmonton. 

The survey also accounts for the diversity of a population and how certain internal and external factors could affect a single shopping trip. The resulting data from the survey is intended to be used to improve existing roadways and create better ones for the citizens of Edmonton. Similarly, the survey can be used to improve the transportation systems in other cities, or in general, optimize how people bring their goods home whether that be through online delivery services or bringing them home themselves.