The project applies novel health measurements, journey mapping and storytelling to understand different dimensions of the problem. It assesses how informal mobility solutions adopted by vulnerable groups interact with official mobility infrastructure and systems.
After identifying particular pressing challenges with local communities, EquiMob will work with engineers and vulnerable users to co-design solutions to improve mobility allowing better access to work, education, healthcare and opportunities particular for vulnerable users to improve health and wellbeing.
The interaction of mobility with health and wellbeing linked to infrastructure, governance and behaviours in dynamic rapidly changing cities entails a consideration of this issue from an interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the interactions of mobility on other dimensions of health, poverty alleviation through enhanced livelihoods, access to education and equitable urban infrastructure entail a more holistic consideration of the relationships between these intertwined issues of development.
Understanding infrastructure and mobility interactions in space and time
To assess the interactions, multiple dimensions of mobility on wellbeing, EquiMob uses a mixed methods approach aimed at characterising both the physiological and psychological impacts of urban commutes on participants.
Working with up to 60 individuals participatory GIS (PGIS) and service design is used to understand individual travel demands and interactions within the dimensions of our assessment frameworks.
Mapping individuals’ journeys and the challenges faced en-route, for a cross-section of users (including vulnerable groups, women and men, and different ages including children) EquiMob will examine both positive and negative journey experiences.
The mapping will be enhanced by connections to digital storytelling approaches developed in our previous co-design (I-CMiiST, Air-Network Nairobi) and wellbeing projects (EPSRC Mood, Mobility & Place) enhanced with imagery and video to better understand the temporal dimensions of commuting.
EquiMob will compare perceptual data to officially accessible data on accidents and injury hotspots for different types of users and transport modes to elicit an visualise discrepancies between official estimations of road safety and lived experiences of mobility hazards affecting wellbeing,
Understanding health and wellbeing impacts of mobility
In each city, wellbeing and health interactions of mobility will be investigated in more detail using different quantitative and subjective approaches.
Subjective well-being (SWB) is a subjective measure often conceptualized into two separate aspects:
Hedonic SWB deals with mood, and feelings of pleasure or happiness;
Eudaimonic SWB is about finding purpose or meaning, experiencing personal growth, and achieving self-actualization.
Participants will be assessed on how journeys affect their mood state (using Profile of Mood States (POMS)) through pre- and post-journey questionnaires.
Post-trip Satisfaction with Travel surveys (tested in numerous international settings but not East Africa) will also be used to assess the impact of journeys on subjective well being (Singleton, 2018).
These will be collected by travel-mode segments e.g. walk-bus-walk to identify the effects of different modes.
Use of sensors
Building on methods developed in the SEI City Health & Wellbeing Initiative, the physiological impacts of journeys on health, and interaction with elements of infrastructure and environmental quality will be assessed through personal monitoring data.
Smart watches will be used to collect data on heart-rate variability (HRV). This data can reveal the influence of environments on the nervous system to indicate stress or relaxation and enables the assessment of the effect of differing urban environments on people’s health
and wellbeing.
To assess the health dimension in more detail, participants’ air pollution and noise exposure will be obtained using low-cost sensors including:
– particulate matter (PM) counters
– carbon monoxide (CO) levels using low-cost Lascar loggers,
– temperature and humidity
– noise monitors.
Co-designing Improved Mobility Infrastructure for Wellbeing
Using the outcomes from the previous activities, a series of co-design workshops will be held in each case study city, focused upon specific mobility challenge topics or hot-spot locations where wellbeing impacts are occurring.
We will bring together relevant stakeholders including: infrastructure engineers, transport planners and representatives of vulnerable users (drawn from existing project participants) to an equitable forum, the workshops will use a mixture of traditional and creative presentations, to present the findings and to initiate discussions.
Scenario building, will be used collectively imagine more inclusive mobility futures that could address the challenges that have identified.
Diving down into more detail, the infrastructure implications of these futures will then be investigated such as the spatial dimensions (what needs to happen where); or else the governance or management aspects of infrastructure that could overcome mobility barriers (what needs to change in the system).
The barriers and enablers to these changes including the engineered dimensions will also be considered as well as recognising that implementing them could also affect some people negatively as well as positively.
Equitable Mobility for Health and Well-being 