Abstract
Consumer data arising from the interaction between customers and service providers are becoming ubiquitous. These data are appealing for research because they are frequently collected and quickly released; they cover a wide variety of attitudes, lifestyles and behavioural characteristics; and they are often dynamically replenished and longitudinal. It is demonstrated that consumer data can make important contributions to understanding problems in transport geography and in solving applied problems ranging from migration, infrastructure investment and retail service provision to commuting and individual mobility. However more effective exploitation of these data depends on the construction of bridges to allow greater freedom in the transfer of data from the commercial to the academic sector; it requires development of frameworks for privacy and ethics in the secondary use of personal data; and it is contingent on the emergence of effective strategies for the amelioration of selection bias which impairs the quality of many consumer data sources.
Highlights
Research in transport geography is strongly driven by data, with a strong emphasis on empiricism as well as methodology and policy
The benefits of consumer data with respect to other forms of data are highlighted where this is of direct relevance, a complete enumeration of types of data in the transport geography literature is beyond the scope of the paper
Transport geography has developed a rich tradition in spatial analysis with a huge arsenal of methods and theories ranging from spatial interaction models and microsimulation to agent-based simulation and discrete choice modelling
Summary
Research in transport geography is strongly driven by data, with a strong emphasis on empiricism as well as methodology and policy. Recent studies have been to consider the use of new secondary sources including map data, online timetables, vehicle monitoring and crowd-sourced data (Savage and Burrows, 2007; Goodchild, 2007; Haklay and Weber, 2008) These may be viewed as the geospatial instance of a more general trend towards big data collection which is prevalent in many disciplines. The research hypothesis which this paper seeks to investigate is that consumer data will provide valuable ammunition to augment academic investigations in transport geography. It will gauge the challenges and obstacles to a more complete realisation of this project, and suggest. The benefits of consumer data with respect to other forms of data are highlighted where this is of direct relevance, a complete enumeration of types of data in the transport geography literature is beyond the scope of the paper
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