Supporting a Design Driven Approach to Social Inclusion and Accessibility in Transport

Abstract

This paper presents research into the area of public transport and accessibility, addressing the support of practitioners in achieving socially inclusive solutions to the mobility issues of diverse populations. For decades, social policy has been underpinned by a stereotyping of populations into simplified sub groups: old, young, disabled, etc. and thus solutions often fail to properly address the richness of human variability. These shortcomings are often 'managed' through the ability for people to adapt, however, this is not a sustainable way in which to build a socially inclusive transport infrastructure. A software design tool called HADRIAN is presented. This tool provides a means to evaluate designs for their physical inclusiveness through the use of a virtual user group. This virtual user group is the embodiment of over 100 people that can be used to assess an existing or proposed design and to gain an understanding of what may be done to improve its accommodation. A case study exploring the use of the tool is described together with work in exploring the correlation of the individuals within the HADRIAN system with data on the UK population as a whole and how the inclusion or exclusion of individuals with specific characteristics can be used to inform a more representative view of the inclusiveness of a design.

Digital human modeling (DHM) for improving work environment for specially-abled and elderly

“…2 DHM application in vehicle design and evaluation for elderly and specially-abled. Images adopted from a Kaklanis et al [75], b Erdelyi et al [76] and c Marshall et al [77]…”

“…Erdelyi et al virtually evaluated the vibrational comfort level of the motorcycle ride with human models of able-bodied riders and people with different disabilities using root mean square (RMS) and vibration dose value (VDV) [76]. The suitability of a bus design for elderly and disabled people was also analyzed by Marshall et al using digital manikin of specially-abled and elderly from HADRIAN database [77]. To provide the glimpse of application of DHM software in vehicle design and evaluation targeting for elderly and specially-abled people as the users, current researchers have compiled images from various pieces of literature and presented in Fig.…”

Challenges of Using the Bus as an Older Person

“…All these issues were recognised by the stakeholders and as a passenger group were considered potentially more at risk of injuries than younger passengers. Some of these challenges could be addressed through design of the internal layout of the buses [5], however some are more ingrained in the behaviour of older passengers and drivers.…”

Transport Policy and Social Inclusion

“…While the majority have a European focus, with four papers addressing transport and social inclusion in UK (Clark & Curl, 2016;Marshall et al, 2016;Pooley, 2016;Velho, Holloway, Symonds, & Balmer, 2016), one in Sweden (Lättman, Friman, & Olsson, 2016) and one in France (Purwanto, 2016), three explore different elements of the African (Alando & Scheiner, 2016;Kett & Deluca, 2016) and Asian (Thynell, 2016) contexts. From a methodological perspective, the papers present a variety of approaches (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods and a computer software simulation) drawn from a wide range of disciplinary areas, including sociology, history, gender and development studies, economics, science and technology studies, accessibility planning, engineering and transport studies.…”

“…Marshall et al (2016) present a software design tool named HADRIAN, which can evaluate designs (e.g. of buses and their associated infrastructure) for their qualities of physical accessibility, through the use of a virtual user group developed as the embodiment of over a hundred people.…”