UCLA Still Looking for Help in Their Photo Research Project on Commuting

Back in April, Streetsblog helped announce a "photo research" project being done by the UCLA Transportation Institute to help them analyze commuting trends.  Now that the school year is again underway, they asked if Streetsblog would re-post that information to solicit a little more help from Streetsblog commuters.

If you're interested in helping out, you have to live in the Los Angeles area, be willing to take 10-25 pictures of your commute and be willing to share them.  You can find more information at the project's official website, or read on after the jump for an email from the researchers.

The project ends at the end of this month, so if you're interested it's time to get out your camera and get to work.

Researchers at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies are currently conducting a study of the transit riding experience.  This project asks participants to take pictures as they travel on public transit in the greater Los Angeles area and then create travelogues by uploading the photos to a website and adding written commentary.  This information will be analyzed in order to better understand transit from the perspective of people using it.

If you would like to participate in this study, you need to:

• Live in the greater Los Angeles area
• Have access to transit (bus, streetcar, or subway)
• Have access to a digital camera, smartphone, or camera phone for photo collection
• Have photo upload capabilities (e.g., computer with internet access, cell phone with 3G access)
• Make two roundtrips or four one-way trips on public transit and upload photos by October 31, 2010
• Collect at least 10 photos (and up to 25 photos) per trip

For additional information about this project and to register as a participant, please go to the project website at: https://www.spa.ucla.edu/research/its/transitphotos/.  More details about the project are listed under the "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)" link on the main page.

The registration should take 5-10 minutes to complete.  Please review the information on the "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)" and "Tips and Suggestions for Collecting Photos" pages before you begin gathering and uploading photos.

We hope you'll take the opportunity to submit photos of your experiences.  People have reported that the photo gathering does not require much time (many people have collected pictures as part of their daily travel) and the project website is easy to use.  By participating, you'll be helping us learn important things about travel on transit.  An added benefit of participating in this study is entry in a raffle for several gift cards: Best Buy ($100), Trader Joe's ($50), Starbucks ($25 - 2).  Please participate so you'll be eligible for the raffle!

The website will be open through the end of October. However, we have started the analysis phase of this project and would very much like participants to submit their photos as soon as possible.  If you encounter any problems or have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at: ucla.transit.photos@gmail.com.

Please forward this email to anyone you know who might be interested in participating.  They can go directly to the project website to register.

Sincerely,

Camille Fink and Brian Taylor, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
ucla.transit.photos@gmail.com
https://www.spa.ucla.edu/research/its/transitphotos/