Gamified Eco-driving for Young Drivers.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of gamification on encouraging young drivers to engage in eco-driving using naturalistic driving. Drivers aged 18- to 30-years old (“young drivers”) are over-represented in road traffic accident statistics. Motivating young drivers to engage in safer driving habits is imperative to reduce their risk of being involved in a dangerous road traffic collision (RTC). Additionally, the transportation sector is the highest contributor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Eco-driving is a driving style that involves less aggressive acceleration and braking, and reduced speed. The literature shows that eco-driving can reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions and, due to the calmer driving style, can potentially reduce young drivers’ risk of being involved in an RTC. However, the challenge becomes motivating young drivers to engage in eco-driving. Gamified eco-driving applications have seen positive effects on encouraging eco-driving habits, but very little literature investigates the effectiveness of gamified ecodriving focussed on young drivers. There is also the need to explore additional gamification elements beyond the standard points, badges, and leaderboards. Thirty-three drivers aged 18 to 30 were recruited to test the effectiveness of a gamified eco-driving application using naturalistic driving. Three gamification elements were used: a driving score, a radar plot, and a grid that plots the drivers according to both severity and frequency of aggressive driving events. The grid is new to gamified eco-driving research. The study comprised of three phases: (1) Baseline, (2) Gamification with driving score and radar plot, and (3) Gamification with driving score and grid. A t-test shows a significant increase in eco-driving in phase 2 of the study. This effect size was also large. However, compared to the baseline, eco-driving during phase 3, although better, was not significantly higher than the baseline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]