ConnectSmart in Action:Utilizing Incentives and Gamification to Influence Travel Behavior

Figure 1: Two Sides of the ADM Coin:User-and System-Centric Views

Over the years, The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has implemented various Active Transportation Demand Management (ATDM)[1] strategies -a dynamic, real-time approach to managing travel demand, traffic demand, and traffic flow across the entire transportation system. One of ATDM’s components is the Active Demand Management (ADM), focusing on strategies related to demand management. ADM functions as a "two-sided coin", one side represents a system-centric view where operations are optimized to influence user decisions, while the other reflects a user-centric perspective where individual decisions are influenced to enhance system performance, as illustrated in Figure 1. TxDOT’s Houston District has focused primarily on the system-side of ADM and operates High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes throughout the region and time-of-day pricing on corridors such as the I-10 West (Katy Tollway/Managed Lanes) and I-45 North (North Freeway HOT Lane).

Traveler behavior is heavily governed by habit, and previous research indicates that the stronger the habit, the less likely travelers are to engage in a new behavior (Nordfiaern et al., 2014[2]. Once formed, these patterns require significant intervention to alter. Using monetary or non-monetary incentives to “nudge” travelers to change travel behavior is a well-recognized and effective strategy (e.g., Jariyasunant et al[3], 2015) and tailoring rewards to the traveler or trip characteristics may lead to lasting behavior change (BART, 2019[4]). Consequently, actively engaging travelers with alternative mobility options through incentives and gamification is a critical component of the ADM user-centric framework for congestion mitigation.

Technology Deployment and Methodology

ConnectSmart’s mobile app technology integrates a robust behavioral engine supported by an Incentive Engine (IE). One of the incentives deployed by IE is the Make-Trip incentive, which is based on trip-specific variables, weighted by importance scalars, to create a scoring system to scale incentives relative to each trip. The system monitors completed trips daily and, once a trip is validated, presents the user with the incentive. In August 2025, ConnectSmart launched a significant Make-Trip Incentive update featuring a gamified "Spin-Wheel" to increase user engagement with various mobility options, especially non-SOV alternatives. An analysis was undertaken to assess the benefits of the improvement and utilized a control window (late 2024 to early 2025, before the Spin-Wheel was implemented) and a treatment window (late 2025 to early 2026, after the Spin-Wheel was implemented).

The analysis provided insights into the gamification impacts on user engagement, trip volume, and behavior change.

Impact on User Engagement and Trip Volume

Analysts hypothesized that gamifying the incentive experience would increase the average daily trips per active user, and the results indicated a substantial increase: total trip volume rose by 87% (12,361 additional trips) during the treatment period. While the users in the control and treatment windows remained basically the same, total trips per user increased by 104.3%, and average daily trips per user showed a statistically significant increase of 7.19%, suggesting the update successfully fostered a more engaged user base.

 Impact on Behavior Change

The final analysis evaluated whether the spin-wheel multipliers shifted users toward alternative mobility options rather than inadvertently over-rewarding Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV) drivers. The update increased daily average trips across all modes. While SOV volume rose by 83.8%, carpooling experienced a 233.5% surge in total volume. Furthermore, average daily trips per user for carpooling (validated by ConnectSmart’s system algorithms) saw a statistically significant increase of 16.91%.

However, the update was less impactful for active modes; walking and biking saw moderate volume increases of 45.8% and 5.8%, respectively. Financial sustainability is one of the goals, and ConnectSmart rewards trips that meet certain criteria. One of the criteria pertains to the distance travelled to discourage “gaming” the system by taking “micro-trips” (very short trips or breaking a long trip into multiple short trips). As such, distance thresholds for non-motorized modes may require further refinement to ensure rewards align more accurately with the distance traveled by users using these modes.

Conclusion

ConnectSmart’s mobile app “Make-Trip” and “Spin-Wheel” feature update serves as a compelling case study in behavioral design, demonstrating that well-structured incentives can fundamentally alter user trip habits. By leveraging the psychological pull of dynamic rewards and loss aversion, ConnectSmart successfully increased engagement with non-SOV alternative mobility options. Based on these findings, ConnectSmart is planning further refinements to optimize thresholds for active transportation modes.