Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRIPS (TRansport Innovation for vulnerable-to-exclusion People needs Satisfaction)
Reporting period: 2020-02-01 to 2021-07-31
Co-designed solutions for disabled users of urban transport
More than 80 million European citizens face long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairment. People with disabilities are among the most vulnerable at risk of social exclusion. One of the many obstacles they face concerns using public transport and its knock-on effect to equal access to services, education, employment, and socialisation that compromise the wellbeing and prospects of persons with disabilities. To date, there is a disconnect between user needs and preferences regarding existing urban transport and future mobility trends, and in turn the institutional and cultural barriers that prevent the closing of those gaps. To redress this, we need to bring forward systemic change, which effectively requires bringing together disabled users, transport, and assistive technology experts to co-develop innovation roadmap, research priorities, and policy recommendations, and validating the relevance of these outcomes with other vulnerable to exclusion communities to ensure their social and economic sustainability.
Objectives
The project puts forward a co-design approach that underpins Mandate 473: Design for All. Our Co-design-for-All methodology aims to create the conditions for the equal participation of all citizens in open innovation and the development of inclusive mobility designs from their inception. The consortium brings together pan-European networks of users (ENIL), transport organisations (UITP), assistive technology experts (AAATE), and municipalities to engage in open innovation on mobility in 7 pilot cities - Lisbon, Zagreb, Bologna, Cagliari, Brussels, Sofia, Stockholm. Supported by design methodology experts (TUE), systems integration experts (TB), and privacy experts (TRI), TRIPS will design, describe and demonstrate practical steps to empower people with disabilities to play a central role in designing inclusive digital mobility solutions.
Objective 1: Understand disabled citizens’ divergent needs and attitudes towards future mobility as a means for designing inclusive mobility solutions for all. More than 100 disabled citizens took part in qualitative user research using a variety of methods and more than 500 disabled citizens from 21 states in a quantitative survey that provided insights on their needs and attitudes towards existing and future inclusive digital mobility solutions.
Objective 2: Review the state of the art and future trends in mobility, assistive and ICT technologies relating to mobility to identify gaps and explore synergistic solutions across the three sectors. The TRIPS consortium reviewed ten innovative mobility solutions with regards to the usability of people with disabilities - Ride Pooling, Demand Responsive Transport, Micro Transit, Scooter Taxi, Car Sharing, E-Scooter Rental, Bike Sharing, Cycle Lanes, Urban Ropeways, Mobility Hubs, Mobility as a Service. We also assessed if and to what emerging assistive and ICT technologies can close the accessibility gaps for disabled citizens (see D3.2 D3.4).
Objective 3: Develop and test a Co-design-for-All methodology to enable equal access to open innovation to all citizens. The TRIPS consortium has established a longitudinal and regular engagement with 48 disabled users and 24 transport and technology experts for brainstorming and prioritising innovations (WP4) and co-developing Design-for-All co-design methods (WP5) and will be applied to prototyping digital mobility solutions in 7 pilot cities (WP6).
Objective 4: Engage vulnerable-to-exclusion citizens and institutional actors in developing and validating policy recommendations, research priorities, and an industry roadmap for the mobility sector. We engaged our community of 100 persons with disabilities in 7 EU countries in approving our recommendations, as well as 10 transport authorities, 20 transport operators, 10 local disability NGOs. In period 2 our engagement efforts will extend to others vulnerable-to-exclusion communities.
More than 80 million European citizens face long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairment. People with disabilities are among the most vulnerable at risk of social exclusion. One of the many obstacles they face concerns using public transport and its knock-on effect to equal access to services, education, employment, and socialisation that compromise the wellbeing and prospects of persons with disabilities. To date, there is a disconnect between user needs and preferences regarding existing urban transport and future mobility trends, and in turn the institutional and cultural barriers that prevent the closing of those gaps. To redress this, we need to bring forward systemic change, which effectively requires bringing together disabled users, transport, and assistive technology experts to co-develop innovation roadmap, research priorities, and policy recommendations, and validating the relevance of these outcomes with other vulnerable to exclusion communities to ensure their social and economic sustainability.
Objectives
The project puts forward a co-design approach that underpins Mandate 473: Design for All. Our Co-design-for-All methodology aims to create the conditions for the equal participation of all citizens in open innovation and the development of inclusive mobility designs from their inception. The consortium brings together pan-European networks of users (ENIL), transport organisations (UITP), assistive technology experts (AAATE), and municipalities to engage in open innovation on mobility in 7 pilot cities - Lisbon, Zagreb, Bologna, Cagliari, Brussels, Sofia, Stockholm. Supported by design methodology experts (TUE), systems integration experts (TB), and privacy experts (TRI), TRIPS will design, describe and demonstrate practical steps to empower people with disabilities to play a central role in designing inclusive digital mobility solutions.
Objective 1: Understand disabled citizens’ divergent needs and attitudes towards future mobility as a means for designing inclusive mobility solutions for all. More than 100 disabled citizens took part in qualitative user research using a variety of methods and more than 500 disabled citizens from 21 states in a quantitative survey that provided insights on their needs and attitudes towards existing and future inclusive digital mobility solutions.
Objective 2: Review the state of the art and future trends in mobility, assistive and ICT technologies relating to mobility to identify gaps and explore synergistic solutions across the three sectors. The TRIPS consortium reviewed ten innovative mobility solutions with regards to the usability of people with disabilities - Ride Pooling, Demand Responsive Transport, Micro Transit, Scooter Taxi, Car Sharing, E-Scooter Rental, Bike Sharing, Cycle Lanes, Urban Ropeways, Mobility Hubs, Mobility as a Service. We also assessed if and to what emerging assistive and ICT technologies can close the accessibility gaps for disabled citizens (see D3.2 D3.4).
Objective 3: Develop and test a Co-design-for-All methodology to enable equal access to open innovation to all citizens. The TRIPS consortium has established a longitudinal and regular engagement with 48 disabled users and 24 transport and technology experts for brainstorming and prioritising innovations (WP4) and co-developing Design-for-All co-design methods (WP5) and will be applied to prototyping digital mobility solutions in 7 pilot cities (WP6).
Objective 4: Engage vulnerable-to-exclusion citizens and institutional actors in developing and validating policy recommendations, research priorities, and an industry roadmap for the mobility sector. We engaged our community of 100 persons with disabilities in 7 EU countries in approving our recommendations, as well as 10 transport authorities, 20 transport operators, 10 local disability NGOs. In period 2 our engagement efforts will extend to others vulnerable-to-exclusion communities.
TRIPS has already researched the needs and attitudes towards future mobility solutions, reviewed the state-of-the-art on accessibility, mobility, and related digital and assistive technologies and policies, and devised an index to measure mobility. In addition, we have brought together teams of users and transport experts to discuss institutional barriers to adoption, agreed innovation priorities and policy changes, which form the bases for developing recommendations and roadmaps and co-developed an initial co-design methodology that enables disabled citizens to lead the innovation process of prototyping and agree with institutional partners the scope and requirements for the envisions solutions.
TRIPS innovations
• A Co-design-for-All methodology developed in collaboration with disabled users, tested and accepted by both transport experts and users alike.
• A white paper that summarises our users research on the accessibility needs and definition of the role transport sector from a users’ perspective, along with their design suggestions and policy recommendations for future mobility systems.
• The TRIPS Mobility Divide Index (MDI) a user-centric set of indicators of accessibility to guide research, policy making, transport and urban planning. Check our MDI white paper for an overview.
TRIPS achieved Impact
• Both the TRIPs project overall, and our pilot city of Zagreb are candidates for the Zero Project 2022 awards. We engage cities beyond Europe in dialogue, lobbying and mutual exploitation opportunities.
• The TRIPS project is now a member of the Equality and Inclusion working group of UITP, representing disability interests and concerns.
• We regularly engage the members of ENIL and AAATE international networks.
• We work closely with NGOs and the transport ecosystem in the cities of Sophia, Stockholm, Brussels, Zagreb, Bologna, Lisbon and Cagliari.
• We have generated more than 10 conference and journal papers accepted or in review.
• We have been approached by external organisations to collaborate:
o The Dublin transport authority is now in consultation with us about adopting our approach and methods to re-design the city's cycling infrastructure.
o Samres, a Swedish company that provides special transport services for disabled users, has joined our working group in Stockholm with the view to co-develop an accessible travel planner which they hope to adopt to facilitate their services.
In the next period, we focus on prototyping and validation with other vulnerable-to-exclusion users to ensure that outcomes are relevant to the wider population, as well as extensive stakeholder engagement with transport and public authorities to agree a joint innovation roadmap, future research and investment priorities and policy recommendations.
• A Co-design-for-All methodology developed in collaboration with disabled users, tested and accepted by both transport experts and users alike.
• A white paper that summarises our users research on the accessibility needs and definition of the role transport sector from a users’ perspective, along with their design suggestions and policy recommendations for future mobility systems.
• The TRIPS Mobility Divide Index (MDI) a user-centric set of indicators of accessibility to guide research, policy making, transport and urban planning. Check our MDI white paper for an overview.
TRIPS achieved Impact
• Both the TRIPs project overall, and our pilot city of Zagreb are candidates for the Zero Project 2022 awards. We engage cities beyond Europe in dialogue, lobbying and mutual exploitation opportunities.
• The TRIPS project is now a member of the Equality and Inclusion working group of UITP, representing disability interests and concerns.
• We regularly engage the members of ENIL and AAATE international networks.
• We work closely with NGOs and the transport ecosystem in the cities of Sophia, Stockholm, Brussels, Zagreb, Bologna, Lisbon and Cagliari.
• We have generated more than 10 conference and journal papers accepted or in review.
• We have been approached by external organisations to collaborate:
o The Dublin transport authority is now in consultation with us about adopting our approach and methods to re-design the city's cycling infrastructure.
o Samres, a Swedish company that provides special transport services for disabled users, has joined our working group in Stockholm with the view to co-develop an accessible travel planner which they hope to adopt to facilitate their services.
In the next period, we focus on prototyping and validation with other vulnerable-to-exclusion users to ensure that outcomes are relevant to the wider population, as well as extensive stakeholder engagement with transport and public authorities to agree a joint innovation roadmap, future research and investment priorities and policy recommendations.