MOBI - Promoting Smart Mobility to Employee

Impact Mobility Behaviour Change using gamefication. The aim of the game is to encourage employees to travel to work more smartly as well as having fun whilst competing against their friends and colleagues.

Problem

Encourage employers and their employees to use more energy efficient transport modes for their commuter journeys.

Description

After 3 years, the MOBI project ended in March 2016. It buildt on the successes of the From5to4 mobility game from the Netherlands. The aim of the game is to encourage employees to travel to work more smartly (e.g. walking, cycling, public transport and car sharing) as well as having fun competing against their friends and colleagues at the same time. In return, the F5T4 game gives employees information about how much energy they have saved, calories burned as well as the opportunity to win prizes. It’s a simple formula: every week, 1 day smarter commuting. The project aimed to decrease the use of car during rush hour by 20%. This goal was achieved!

Results

Achieved results:

  • 24 games with more than 500 registered trips have been played, but more will continue after the formal ending of the MOBI project;
  • In total 73494 trips were registered in the F5T4 online tool ;
  • There were 930 registered players, 604 of which filled in more than 80% of the days;
  • 91% of the people who participated recommended the game to their peers;
  • At least 33.000 employees took direct notice of the campaign and more than 100.000 people were reached through events, articles, TV items, posters etc;
  • The usage of sustainable modes went from 57% to 80%, exceeding the 20% goal of the project;
  • Car split reduced from 44% to 26%;
  • The energy consumption and CO2 emissions reduced 27% during the game, allowing savings of 5.5 TOE and 14.7 tons of CO2;
  • On average, 200g of CO2 has been saved per trip and 51 kg of CO2 was saved per week;
  • On average the weekly additional calories burned per game is of 1916 calories – this represents an increase in calories burned of 24% from walking and cycling.

Lessons Learned

The lessons learnt in the project were:

  • The idea of gamification to change behaviour is generally very well received. The innovative character and graphical design is liked;
  • Try to understand the needs and concerns of the organization and the staff before approaching them. Making their specific benefits clear from the start. Focus on companies with high social responsibility and human resource concerns;
  • Awards and recognition are essential parts of the motivation to participate and keep playing. The awards need to be clear from the start; people should be able to monitor their progress easily;
  • Large companies are sometimes already providing transport options to their employees, like company buses or train tickets. This makes it very difficult to convince the organisation as well as the employees (of the need) to change commuter habits.