Gaming concepts and incentives to change driver behaviour

In this paper we present a novel concept that deals specifically with changing driver behaviour in order to reduce traffic congestion. The project I-GEAR (incentives and gaming environments for automobile routing) aims to understand the motivations that drivers have while undertaking the daily commute and then to provide them with a range of incentives to change their behaviour. A key focus within the project is on ways in which the problem could potentially be solved without recourse to an expensive infrastructure project. Our solution to this problem was to move the problem of traffic management onto everyday mobile devices. In the following paper we outline the background to the problem, concepts relating to pervasive gaming, existing explorations of incentives and gaming approaches as well as our basic concept and project methodology.