Road-user participation in vehicle-data sharing systems

Abstract

This study aims to provide insight into how factors relating to privacy and incentives influence people's willingness to participate in sharing their vehicle based sensing data with governmental parties for the purposes of improved dynamic traffic management in the Netherlands. Through the use of a stated preference experiment data is gathered in order to estimate a discrete choice model using binary logistic regression. Respondents are most likely willing to share their data when trip registration is not personally identifiable and this data is not shared with third parties. Sharing of data with emergency services and for research purposes actually increases the odds of participation. Furthermore, potential users who have not been exposed alternatives which offer monetary reward are more likely to participate for free. Clear communication of the purpose and the social benefits of participation is important for obtaining sufficient levels of participation without offering monetary reward. Being parsimonious in data collection will result in the least amount of privacy harm and avoid the perception of a system as unfair and inefficient.