Greenie - Alternative Transportation Means for a More Sustainable Environment through a Serious Game

Lydia Sidhom, Slim Abdennadher and Fatema Gabr

Extended Abstract

The ultimate goal of sustainable development is to improve the quality of life of a society and the world while ensuring the integrity of the life support systems. This affects the life of all humans from one generation to the other as well as our planet. This work has a twofold purpose which is to reduce the traffic congestion and meanwhile increase the public environmental awareness through a serious game. The purpose of the game presented here is to raise people's awareness about the problem of traffic congestion and how it affects the environment and themselves. Moreover, it aims at introducing them to alternative transportation means other than using the car, and measuring the change in their behavior towards their transportation after playing the game.

Two studies were held to evaluate this work. The first one examined the current awareness of its 16 participants, their willingness to change their behavior, and the potential of using a serious game to achieve that. In the second study Greenie was introduced to another 14 participants as an example of such a serious game, and its usability and features were tested. For the first study, results show that being more aware about the environmental problem in hand, motivates people to change their transportation behavior. The second study showed positive feedback about the concept of Greenie and its features. Thus, as an overall finding, this work provides evidence that using a serious game to encourage people to maintain a sustainable environment is possible.