Development, implementation, and preliminary assessment of multi-purpose mobile application for traffic health and safety

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Among the various interventions to reduce the global burden of accidents, various technological interventions have been designed and implemented using mobile phone capabilities. The purpose of this study is to develop and initially evaluate a multipurpose mobile app for traffic safety and health. Method and materials To develop the content of the application, a review and classification of developed applications worldwide, a review of articles related to traffic safety apps, and an expert panel method were used. Based on the results of the above steps, a conceptual model was developed for the multipurpose application and the final content and how to present the content for the application was determined. The Flutter framework and Dart programming language were used to develop the application. Finally, the application was evaluated technically, by experts, and for usability. Results The multipurpose mobile app resulting from this study covers three groups of accident recording and reporting; distraction management; and vehicle performance, maintenance and fixing with 12 features. 54.7% of app users installed and used the multipurpose app. 45.2% responded to the usability questionnaire. The total score of the app was 2.75 (acceptable). Conclusion Although designing mobile interventions to target human, vehicle and environmental factors in the field of traffic safety and health in one application seems feasible, hardware limitations of mobile phones, privacy and security issues, existing infrastructure in the country and the challenge of intersectoral coordination are among the most important barriers to implementing a comprehensive application in the field of traffic safety and health. Keywords: Traffic safety, traffic accident, driving accidents, health information management, M-health