The Impact of Social Media Usage on Transport Policy: Issues, Challenges and Recommendations

Transport stakeholders are increasingly recognizing the value of social media in connecting with their customers in many forms. This study explores two sides to engagement with social media – firstly the potential uses of social media by transport service suppliers and secondly the potential value to policy development of shared transport related information by the public. Samples of stakeholders of different sizes were selected for the study, reflecting alternative modes and providing a variety of services and functions in the transport sector. The findings give insights into the practices of organizations of different size, function and longevity of social media use. The early results of a study to harvest freely available transport information from the public and transport system users are also presented, demonstrating that transport policy relevant information can be harvested from online social media sources.