Overview
It has been identified by companies all over the world that it`s crucial for the success of the business to use the knowledge about the search behaviour of users for your own company related decisions. It`s a fact at least since the introduction of Google Trends, that by search queries also conclusions on phenomena of the society can be made.
The objective of the project Mobility Trends is to explore, if there is a possible correlation between the search behaviour of users of internet search engines and transportation and mobility-related issues, as well as to make the possible correlation available for the community of transportation and mobility. Millions of internet-users are searching every day online for different information on numerous topics, including the fields of transportation and mobility. The sort and the frequency of the search queries are letting us to make conclusions on the actual behaviour of the individuals. Therefore, it has been identified by companies all over the world that it`s crucial for the success of the business to use the knowledge about the search behaviour of users for your own company related decisions. Companies are actively using data from the most common search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Atotco, Bingo etc.) for prediction of the actual behaviour.
It`s a question of "prediction of presence" (and less of the future), as those previews can be mainly used for explaining present or very close future phenomena. It`s a fact at least since the introduction of Google Trends, that by search queries not only forecasts for the companies, but also conclusions on phenomena of the society can be made. Especially the so-called Google Flu-Trends have a pioneering task. In this connection predictions are made to the number of flu-infected individuals from the information on search queries for health.
The objective of the project Mobility Trends is to explore, if there is a possible correlation between the search behaviour of users of internet search engines and transportation and mobility-related issues, as well as to make the possible correlation available for the community of transportation and mobility. It will be analysed under which assumptions and conditions it would be generally possible, for which target groups this new information could be of any interest and how the offer of transportation and mobility solutions could be improved, if the conclusions would be of significance for the future decisions of all possible stakeholders (e.g. local authorities, providers of the public transportation etc.). Keeping in mind that it was never tried to use conclusions from the Big Data-Research for issues of transportation and mobility, the Project under review is a pioneering attempt to generate novel information, which could support and enrich the traditional methods and techniques of decision-support for decision makers (either in politics and administration or/and for Transportation companies).