A Randomized Field Trial of Smartphone-based Feedback to Encourage Safe Driving

Injury Prevention Clinical Trial

Official title:

A Randomized Field Trial of Smartphone-based Feedback Designed to Encourage Safe Driving: Comparing Focused and Self-chosen Goals to Standard UBI Messaging

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT06101251
• Other study ID #: 853761
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: January 25, 2024
• Est. completion date: August 10, 2024

Study information

• Verified date: January 2024
• Source: University of Pennsylvania
• Contact: Dina Abdel-Rahman
• Phone: 2677362206
• Email: dina.abdel-rahman[@]pennmedicine.upenn.edu
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The study team are proposing to conduct a randomized controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of focused feedback vs standard feedback and self-chosen vs assigned goals on driving behaviors targeted by behavior-based insurance apps: hard braking, fast acceleration, handheld phone use, and speeding. The interventions arms will receive feedback on their driving behaviors, tips for safe driving, and a UBI-like financial incentive. The Penn research team will use Meta advertisements to recruit for the study and determine eligibility via an online survey. Those who enroll will undergo a 6-week run-in period during which their driving trips will be monitored by a mobile app. Individuals with a sufficient number of trips during this period will be randomly assigned to one of four arms for the intervention period. Target enrollment is 1,300 participants (325 per trial arm). The power analysis assumed an attrition rate of 20% over the course of the study.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 1300
• Est. completion date: August 10, 2024
• Est. primary completion date: June 29, 2024
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• 18 years of age or older

• Has an Apple or Android smartphone (iPhone iOS 12 or later or Android OS 7 or later)

• Drives at least 2 days per week

• English reading ability

• Passes an attention check

• Provides valid email address, cell number, name, address, and date of birth

Exclusion Criteria:

-

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Behavioral Economics
• Distracted Driving
• Injury Prevention

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Driving Tips
Each week participants will receive a safe driving tip for one of the four behaviors via text message.
• Standard Feedback
Each week participants will receive a text message showing their overall driving score (out of 100) and subscores for distraction, hard braking, fast acceleration, and speeding (all running averages). The scoreboard will indicate whether their scores have gone up, down, or stayed the same. The message will include a link to a dashboard.
• Assigned Focus Area Feedback
Each week feedback will focus the participant's attention on the driving behavior with the greatest opportunity for improvement based on their baseline driving behavior. Participants will be assigned a goal for the week of a score 5 points (3 points in the case of Driver Focus) better than their baseline for that area. If they meet the goal, they will be given a new goal 5 points higher; if they fall short, they will be asked to try for the same goal again. If they improve sufficiently-or if their improvement stalls out-they will be assigned a new behavior to focus on.
• Study Dashboard (Standard)
By clicking the link in the feedback text, they will be able to view a weekly dashboard that provides detailed information about their baseline, best, last, and average scores for each of the four behaviors, plus descriptions of the four behaviors.
• Study Dashboard (focused)
Same as standard study dashboard, except participants will see at the top of the dashboard how well they are doing relative to their weekly goals.
• UBI-like Behavioral Incentive
At the end of the 12-week intervention period, their overall driving score will be translated into a $0-$100 reward amount. For example, a participant with an overall driving score of 84 at the end of the intervention period would receive $84 in compensation.
• Sef-Chosen Focus Area Feedback
Participants will be asked to select which driving behavior they want to focus on improving, and to set a goal for the week that is above their baseline score. If they meet the goal, they will be asked to set a new, higher goal; if they fall short, they will be asked to try for the same goal again. If they improve sufficiently-or if their improvement stalls out-they will be asked if they want to focus on a new behavior.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Pennsylvania	AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Handheld phone use per hour of driving	This is a composite outcome that measures the proportion of total trip time in which the driver is engaged in handheld phone call use or non-call handheld use (e.g. texting, swiping, and typing), as measured by the Way to Drive app. Several studies (e.g. Klauer, NEJM, 2014) have demonstrated the association between handheld phone use (e.g., reaching for phone, typing, swiping, dialing) and increased crash risk. This outcome is also known as the active phone use percentage. Passive phone use (e.g. phone is streaming GPS navigation directions or music without any typing, swiping, or holding of the phone) is not included in this outcome.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Other	Overall riskiness metric	This is a composite measure of the underlying driving metrics for the four behaviors of interest. For each behavior a z-score will be computed for each participant and take the mean of these four z-scores to get their overall riskiness. This will be done for both the intervention period and the post-intervention period.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Other	Disabled SMS messaging	If a participant texts "stop" or "bye" to stop receiving our intervention text messages, this could indicate unacceptability of push notification interventions. This will be measured as a binary score, where participants that text "stop" or "bye" will be marked as 1, and those that do not will be marked as 0.	18 weeks of the study (6 - week baseline; 12- week intervention period)
Other	Unenrolled	If a participant asks to be unenrolled, this is an even stronger indicator of unacceptability. This will be measured as a binary score, where 1 means the participant was unenrolled before the end of the intervention period, and 0 means they were not.	18 weeks of the study (6 - week baseline; 12- week intervention period)
Other	Net Promoter Score (NPS)	This will be derived for each arm based on a 1-item question on a scale of 0 -10, 0 bring not at all likely to recommend the program, and 10 being extremely likely.	At 24 weeks.
Other	4-item acceptability scale	This will be a 4-item acceptability scale administered in the exit survey. For each participant the mean of the 4 items will be calculated for an overall acceptability score ranging from 1-5 (5 is the best).	At 24 weeks.
Other	Intervention helpfulness.	Intervention arm participants will be asked to rate the helpfulness of each of the 4 intervention components (SMS feedback, weekly dashboard, SMS tips, $100 incentive), each on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely), with an option to indicate they did not see or were not aware of the intervention component.	At 24 weeks.
Other	Hard braking events per 100 miles of driving	Number of hard braking evens per 100 miles of driving	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Other	Minutes of speeding per hour of driving.	Based on duration of speeding events detected by the app.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Other	Fast acceleration events per 100 miles of driving.	Number of fast acceleration events per 100 miles of driving.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Primary	Overall Driving Score	This is the mean of the four behavior scores for the intervention period (and, in a follow-up analysis of effect sustainability, the post-intervention period). Scores can range from 0 -100, 100 being the safest driving score.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Secondary	Distraction score	A proprietary CMT score based on participant phone use-especially handheld phone use-while driving on a scale of 0-100, 100 being no phone use while driving (safest).	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Secondary	Speeding score	A proprietary CMT score based on the amount of time the participant drove over the speed limit on a scale from 0 -100, 100 being no incidences of driving over the speed limit.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Secondary	Braking score	A proprietary CMT score based on the frequency of a participant's hard brakes on a scale of 0-100, 100 meaning no hard brakes.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.
Secondary	Acceleration Score	A proprietary CMT score based on the frequency of a participant's fast accelerations on a scale of 0-100. 100, being no fast accelerations.	12 weeks of the intervention period + separate analysis of 6 week post intervention.