Comparing monetary incentives for cycling: a field experiment

Last registered on August 21, 2018

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Comparing monetary incentives for cycling: a field experiment

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0002462

Initial registration date

August 17, 2018

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

August 21, 2018, 12:15 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Norway

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Alice Ciccone

Affiliation

Institute of Transport Economics

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2018-08-20

End date

2020-06-01

Keywords

Environment & Energy, Health

Additional Keywords

Active transport, Field Experiment, Lottery, cycling, mobile app tracking

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

We aim to assess different incentive schemes to motivate for active transport in urban areas by using approaches drawn from the behavioural economics literature. In this randomized controlled trial in the field, we test the impact of different monetary incentives on cycling activity.
Participants' trips are monitored through a mobile app which allows to quantify all transport activity including cycling during, before and after the experimental period. The paper compare the effect of a riskless and flat rate incentive for all, with the possibility for few to win a large sum of money through a lottery. All treatments are compared to a control group who is using the app without cycling related incentives.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Ciccone, Alice. 2018. "Comparing monetary incentives for cycling: a field experiment." AEA RCT Registry. August 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2462-1.0

Former Citation

Ciccone, Alice. 2018. "Comparing monetary incentives for cycling: a field experiment." AEA RCT Registry. August 21. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2462/history/33257

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Participants will be recruited by email to NAF members (Norway's Automobile Federation), students from Oslo University, and previous survey participant list who have agreed to be contacted again by TØI. In addition we will advertise posts on Facebook.

Contacted people will be asked to answer a 10-15 min survey about themselves and their transportation habits. This part of the study is shared with other projects within TØI, all aimed at studying active transport.

After consenting to participation in the experiment, respondents will be asked to download the Sense.DAT. This app runs in the background of the mobile phones and records all participant trips.

Intervention Start Date

2018-08-27

Intervention End Date

2018-10-12

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Km cycled

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Total Km cycled: sum of all cycled Km per each participant
Average Km cycled per day: total km each participant cycled during the experimental treatment divided by the total number of available days

This measure will be retrived by a mobile app registration.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Number of days with cycle activity

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The field experiment will be run in four cities in Norway. Participants' will be asked through a survey to dowload a mobile app which allows to quantify cycling activity during, before and after the experimental period.

We will compare the effect of three treatments: 1) a riskless and flat rate payment per km cycled, 2) the possibility of winning a lottery based on the amount of Km cycled, and 3) a lottery with the addition of regret aversion.

All treatments are compared to a control group (C) and between each other. Participants in the C group is only using the app without cycling-related incentive.

Before the experiment starts, each group will receive a set of instructions which describe the incentive schemes and provide further information regarding the use of the app and the practicalities of the experiment.

Experimental Design Details

Below we use the words:
- "research period" to identify the period of time in which the app is registering participant movement; which goes from the 27 of August until mid October 2018.
- "experimental period" to identify the period of time participant are incentivized in the treatment gorups; which goes from the 3rd of September to the 21st of September 2018 and only includes working days (monday-friday).

To avoid drops out and to have an "active control group", we incentivise every participant to dowload the app and use it throught the "research period". The incentive is one price of NOK 1000,- (circa EURO 100) allocated through a lottery at the end of the period. To be qualified to enter this lottery participants must have installed and activated the app from the 27 of August until mid October 2018.

The control group only receives this common incentive.

The treatments group receive in addition:
Treatment 1: All participants in the first treatment group (T1) will receive a flat rate payment of NOK 2,- per Km cycled in the "experimental period".
Treatment 2: All participants in the second treatment group (T2) will receive one lottery ticket per Km cycled and will have the possibility of winning NOK 9 000,- (circa EURO 930).
Treatment 3: All participants in the third treatment group (T3) will receive one lottery ticket per Km cycled and will have the possibility of winning NOK 9 000, - as in T2. In addition, the winner of the lottery in T3 will be subjected to a second lottery which draws a random day out of the 15 available days of the "experimental period". The winner of the first lottery will only receive the prize if he/she cycled (at least 1 km) during the drawn day. In case he/she did not cycle the drawn day, he/she will receive a message that he/she could have won the prize, but didn't because of the missing cycling activity the drawn day. We will then draw another winner and check whether he/she has cycled the drawn day. This process is repeated until the winner of the first lottery has cycled the drawn day.

In addition to the "experimental period", participants will familiarize with the app during a pre-intervention period which will last 7 days. After the experimental period, we will keep registering all activity in a experimental period that will last from the 22nd of September until mid October.

Randomization Method

Stratified randomization done through MIPRO software.
Strata: cities, amount of cycling, gender

Randomization Unit

Individuals

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

800 individuals

Sample size: planned number of observations

800 individuals

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

200 individuals per treatment

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Based on the result of a previous pilot with similar incentives we expect an effect of about 3 km per person per day and a st. dev. per treatment group of about 9km.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB