Background

Tourists represent a subset of the population that is particularly vulnerable to “crimes of place” given the lack of location-based insight that is usually acquired by being a local. Hot Spot theory suggests that knowledgeable tourists can avoid certain locations likely to be stalked by criminals, however, no mechanism exists to acquire the necessary knowledge to do so without proactively researching an area. We built a mechanism that allows tourists to preemptively avoid exposing themselves to “crimes of place” through reactive measures, with no need of a priori knowledge.

The Process

Our app influences tourist mobility patterns by reactively informing when exposure to risk occurs. Using entries of criminal activity obtained from local authorities databases, we clustered geo zones and assigned to them a computed risk factor. Through transition based geofencing, notification occurs when the condition of mobility in the direction of increasing danger is met. By combining these components with the affordances granted by wearable devices, such as an Android watch, we can inform users with minimal cognitive load and gain insight on the impact of such notification on their mobility.

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