Modern navigation systems often provide to the users more than one routes from a starting location (called source) to the destination location (called target). The goal is to provide the users with multiple options so that they can choose a route of their choice for traveling. Consider the image below that shows three different routes from Liverpool to Auburn (two towns in Sydney).
Intuitively, the routes provided to the users should be significantly different from each other but should have similar traveling time (so that the users have more diverse but feasible options). We call these multiple routes provided to the users "alternative routes". In this research, we have selected four existing approaches that provide the users with a set of alternative routes. It is not always clear what constitutes a set of "good" alternative routes because it is subjective and depends on a user's personal experience. Therefore, in this research, we display the alternative routes generated by the four approaches and ask the users to rate each approach from 1 to 5 based on their perceived quality of the provided routes (higher number indicates better quality).
The link to complete the survey is given at the end of the page. You will select two locations on the map (the first location will be the source and the second location will be the target). Please consider selecting source and target locations in areas that are familiar to you so that you can better evaluate the route quality. You can press "Clear" button to remove the source and target locations if you mistakenly click on the map. When you press "Submit" button, a new window/tab will open which will display a set of alternative routes from the source location to the target location for each of the four approaches named A, B, C, and D (to maintain anonymity of the approaches). Each approach will display up to 3 routes (in some cases, an approach may display only 1 or 2 routes). For each route, you will also see estimated travel time of that route. You are expected to carefully look at the alternative routes generated by each approach and rate each approach from 1 to 5 (higher indicated better quality) based on how good you think the routes generated by the approach are considering that the alternative routes should be significantly different from each other but meaningful/natural. In other words, if these routes were provided to you by your navigation system, how will you rate the quality. Note that in some cases, you may find that the routes generated by two or more approaches are of similar quality. In this case, please enter the same rating for such approaches. You can also enter an optional comment to support your rating or indicate any other issue (e.g., "I don't like routes by approach X because it has an un-necessary detour").
It will take around 5-10 minutes to complete the survey. We will really appreciate if you enter your rating for several different source-target locations (E.g., route from your home to office, route from your home to any other place you frequently visit etc.).
The explanatory statement contains further information such as consent, possible risks and benefits for participants, confidentiality, storage of data, results and complaints etc. Click here to access the explanatory statement.