ACCESS
INDIMO
DIGITAL MOBILITY SOLUTIONS FOR ALL
It is a common understanding that traditional transport systems have been less focused on the specific requirements of caregivers – people who accompany other dependent individuals and perform activities of care. As explained by Floridea Di Ciommo, caregivers, who are typically women, need to be considered in the new era of inclusive digital mobility services
© Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels
The emergence and consolidation of mobility and logistics services provided by mobile apps has created new alternatives for citizens mobility needs. Nevertheless, there is a risk that these services will not be available and accessible to all members of society. According to the collected data from 2006 to 2019, the lower odds of engaging in digital services are indeed held by women and unemployed, retired, or lower-qualified workers, as well as people living in rural areas and people over 55 years old.
The INDIMO project focuses on these target groups for building-up the Universal Design Manual for Inclusive Digital mobility solutions for policy makers, including local authorities, developers, and stakeholders, representing users and non-users of digital mobility services. Interestingly, INDIMO’s research has shown that mobility services are mostly planned and deployed with a focus on a hypothetical male user whose main activities are commuting to work and travelling on his own: an assumption that needs to be recalibrated through further research, examples, and pilot interventions.
Digital literacy Data
22% of all European households still do not have access to broadband internet, especially in rural areas. In some EU Member States, over 25% of the population still does not regularly go online. Almost 10% of EU citizens have never used the internet, with a high number of non-users among those with low education levels, aged over 55, retired or inactive (European Commission, 2020).
Caregivers’ mobility requirements cover many aspects © Sai De Silva, Unsplash
Marie - Berlin
In Berlin’s case – one of the five INDIMO pilots leaded by Door-2-Door developer, it is revealed how caregivers’ requirements cover many aspects, from type of vehicles and equipment to onboarding and offboarding spots and routes, and from the attitude of personnel and other passengers to available information and communication from mobility companies. Working with more inclusive user categories, the prominent persona that represents Berlin’s peri-urban area is Marie, a 30-year-old woman who is married and has two children – a toddler and a baby. Usually working part-time, in this scenario she is on maternity leave. In addition, she lives with her very busy husband, who needs the car to get to work, and she has very little support from others to take care of her children, given that her parents live an hour away from her.
Fig 1: Continuum capability-limitation area for Marie
As there are only limited public transport options in her neighbourhood, it is more convenient for her to use ridesharing option when she wishes to bring her children along to the grocery store, the doctor, or the kindergarten - she is also an already enthusiast user of the local ride sharing service, as it helps her getting everyday tasks done more swiftly and with less frustrations, especially when compared with the inadequate public transport offer. That being said, her social diagram of capability-limitation shows transport poverty circumstances that only partially can be solved by Technical/Digital mobility solutions.
The INDIMO pilots
The INDIMO pilots are: P1. Introducing digital lockers to enable e-commerce in rural areas (Emilia Romagna-Italy), P2. Inclusive traffic lights (Antwerp–Belgium); P3. Informal ridesharing in ethnic towns (Galilee); P4. Cycle logistics platform for delivery healthy food (Madrid-Spain); P5. On-demand ridesharing integrated into multimodal route planning (Berlin-Germany).
New alternatives of mobility can improve women’s productive time as well as further their job opportunities © Christina Morillo, Unsplash
Marian - Galilee
When adequately handled, new alternatives of mobility can improve women’s productive time as well as further their job opportunities. The SAFARCON informal ridesharing application was built specifically for women in the Galilee Arab-Israeli sector. Planned and designed by Kayan, a feminist Arab women organization, and Technion, the technological institute of Israel, the app had direct support from the Office of the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Transportation (MOT), while local authority seemed less involved in its deployment.
Vulnerable-to-exclusion groups such as ethnic minorities, Arab women, people in transportation poverty, and rural residents were the target groups during the planning and designing of the app, with a special focus on making universities or education centres closer to women – a scenario that serves as the background for the prominent persona of Galilee, Marian, a 25-year-old who was born and raised in a village. A part-time university student, Marian combines her studies with a sales job at the grocery store outside her village. Despite her rural upbringing, she has digital know-how and uses multiple apps, which makes her social diagram quite interesting: while it showcases both socio-economic and transport poverty, it also features high digital knowledge. Even if Marie and Marian are both women, their capability-limitation areas look quite different due to local idiosyncrasies and family circumstances.
Fig 2: Continuum capability-limitation area for Mariam
The digital knowledge of older and socially isolated people tends to be rather specific and limited to what they learn from people close to them © Georg Arthur Pflueger, Unsplash
Maria Carmén – Madrid
Another insight in the INDIMO research is that older and socially isolated people have some contact with digital tools, mainly instant chatting with their families through WhatsApp. A mechanical adoption of a specific tool, however, does not translate into a broad and flexible approach towards technology: performing mechanical steps that have been memorized (for example, sending a message through WhatsApp) does not mean that there is an actual capability to solve a problem within the digital world, such as finding, downloading, registering, checking in and starting using an app. This means that the digital knowledge of older and socially isolated people tends to be rather specific, punctual, limited to softwares they have had experience with, and not flexible and extendable to other apps/programs, which opens up a gap between the practical and operative learning of a digital tool and the actual skill of the users. To mend this gap, it is necessary to accommodate digital requirements to different levels of digital mastering – e.g., by offering the opportunity of ordering services, asking questions, or making complaints through WhatsApp or other instant messaging platforms.
Apps for seniors and Word of Mouth
For older people, the first contact with an app, together with its download and registration is usually suggested by a relative, who might also guide its first use. The exploration of alternatives is thus limited and most of the relevant information for usage is transferred as Word of Mouth.
Within this frame, the socially isolated persona developed is Maria Carmén, a widowed woman of 60 years old that lives in an apartment in the centre of Madrid. Her two children live in the outskirts of the city, and even if she receives financial support from both the state and her children, she is still socially isolated from her family and from other people.
Given the circumstances, she is socially aware and sensitive to the topic, so much that she actually wants to better understand and leverage her social impact. In addition, María Carmen has basic digital skills which allow her to use WhatsApp and stay in touch with relatives and friends. This means that, when it comes to the delivery food service platform CoopCycle-La Pajara, the INDIMO pilot in Madrid, María Carmen expects that her purchasing is more than a provision of goods. To her, it entails an identity statement about her personal values, views, lifestyles, and concerns. This third persona, compared with Marie and Marian, shows a completely different socio-diagram that features some socio-economic and transport poverty, but with a less probability of recovering through digital services.
Fig 3: Continuum capability-limitation area for María Carmen
Conclusion
The three INDIMO pilots show digital inclusion in three different ways: Madrid, with the inclusive food delivery service that integrates the digital platform CoopCycle with the local operator la Pajara, is inclusive by design; in Berlin, the role of the developer in satisfying the still neglected needs of women caregivers is key for inclusive digital ride-sharing mobility options; Galilee shows how partnerships between technological research local authorities and feminist organization can help in supporting developers in designing a digital mobility service that empowers women.
Floridea Di Ciommo is Co-director of cambiaMO.
You can contact her at floridea.diciommo@cambiamo.net