Gamification for public transportation - Improving attractiveness with interactive game elements

Sammanfattning: During the last year and a half the Sars-Cov-2 virus has affected the world in many different ways. One of the things that Sars-Cov-2 has had an effect on, is the amount of travelers. Kalmar Länstrafik, the authority responsible for public transportation, has noticed a decline of travelers during the last year. Therefore it has been requested to make a study on gamification. Gamification, the idea of using game elements in non-game contexts, is a term coined by Nick Pelling in 2002. It is commonly used to make users more engaged by earning rewards, finishing tasks and competing with others. Many of the game elements can be found in all different kinds of systems. They are usually referred to as graphical components for levels, achievements and leaderboards. Like games, gamification requires the voluntary participation of users. This thesis presents an overview of the research made on gamification in public transportation, to find out if a gamification strategy can be applied to the public transportation application GoOn to make users more prone to use the application. In addition to the literature review, a proof of concept is implemented into the application GoOn to visually present and evaluate a gamification strategy. After the proof of concept is implemented it is tested by a selected group of users. The users are also handed a survey inside of the implemented program to gauge the potential benefits of using a gamified solution for GoOn.