Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
Accessibility can be viewed as the “ability to access” and benefit from some system or entity. Accessibility involves removing the barriers faced by individuals with a variety of disabilities (which can include, but is not limited to: physical, sensory, cognitive, learning, mental health) and the various barriers (including attitudinal and systemic) that impede an individual’s ability to participate in social, cultural, political, and economic life. Disabilities can be temporary or permanent.
The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers).
Accessibility is not to be confused with usability, which is the extent to which a product (such as a device, service, or environment) can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
Accessibility is strongly related to universal design which is the process of creating products that are usable by people with the widest possible range of abilities, operating within the widest possible range of situations.
A key challenge faced by Smart Cities is to ensure the engagement and inclusion of all people including citizens with disabilities and those that are aging. An accessible Smart City is purposefully designed to include all people and equitably meets the needs of both people with disabilities and people who self-identify as non-disabled.
A Smart City isn’t smart if it doesn’t support the needs of all citizens.
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The need to design inclusive cities is becoming increasingly clear across the globe. However, not all urban models being designed today meet this objective, particularly regarding disability.
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What’s better than a society which caters to the needs of all its citizens? Inclusive design offers a wide range of possibilities for cities to help them create an accessible and barrier-free society in several areas whether it concerns the services they provide such as public transportation but also in their architecture with buildings and parks. In addition, culture happens…
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It’s not just about meeting the regulations, it’s about making GOV.UK accessible for everyone. It’s important to us that we do not stop at meeting the standards. GOV.UK should be accessible for everyone so we’re aiming to fix the other accessibility issues we found, even if they’re not covered by WCAG.
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We live in a world built for people who hear. But what would our man-made world look like if it were designed for those who don’t hear? Gallaudet University in Washington, DC is a school for the Deaf and hard of hearing. And they are redesigning entire buildings based on the sensory experience of those who don’t hear. They’ve only…
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Traveling to work, meeting friends for a catch up or just doing some shopping are often taken for granted by people with no known disabilities. For the visually impaired, these seemingly simple things can be a serious challenge. But imagine a city equipped with technology that enables the visually impaired to recognise people, places or even bank notes, helping them…
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An MIT report estimates truly autonomous vehicles might not hit the streets for a decade. And when they do, it’s difficult to say whether they will fully accommodate all riders, including those with disabilities. Driverless car technology promises to remove barriers to personal transportation, but few self-driving operators have made headway on solutions for customers with mobility, vision, and hearing…
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Over 116 000 shopping malls are spread in the United States of America and generate each year around 5 trillion dollars. But are they accessible for people with disabilities?
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Abstract Of the many features that smart cities offer, safe and comfortable mobility of pedestrians within the built environment is of particular importance. Safe and comfortable mobility requires that the built environments of smart cities be accessible to all pedestrians, mobility abled and mobility impaired, given their various mobility needs and preferences. This, coupled with advanced technologies such as wayfinding…
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Cities are becoming smarter than ever before, with a plethora of startups looking to transform how we interact with our urban spaces. The rise of the smart city, however, poses a new and difficult problem for governments…
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Age-friendly cities are those that design and adapt their communities so they are suitable for everyone, regardless of age or abilities. That is, barrier-free, inclusive and cohesive cities, designed for diversity.
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While big cities are still struggling with their general accessibility, many smaller cities have already done everything to be accessible to all. Europe, the home of gray cobblestones and ancient castles, isn’t the most accessible continent in the world for people living with disabilities…
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Everyday, we rethink today’s cities to transform them in smart cities accessible to everyone. By creating solutions ever more tailored to the needs of people with disabilities, we push the limits, constantly improve the urban life and make the cities more enjoyable for the growing majority.
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Travelling to work, meeting friends for a catch up or just doing some shopping are often taken for granted by people with no known disabilities. For the visually impaired, these seemingly simple things can be a serious challenge. But imagine a city equipped with technology that enables the visually impaired to recognize people, places or even bank notes, helping them…
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Accessibility to some key information and communication technologies (ICTs) like TV, websites, books, assisted medical devices, mobile phones and apps for persons with disabilities (PWDs) remain a mere lip service, according to users and experts in the field. India is ranked 46th in the world and 9th amongst lower-middle-income countries behind Egypt, Kenya, Angola, and the Philippines according to the…
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(Pittsburgh) — How we get from one place to another can have a big impact on our lives. Conjure up the feeling of sitting in a hot car, stuck in gridlock, and compare it to taking a short bike ride to work or to meet a friend. It may not seem like a big deal, but the difference between the…
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Most people know about Seattle’s rain, but they’re surprised to learn that the city, especially the downtown area, is steeper than Denver, the “Mile High City.” Seattle’s hills can render many buildings and businesses, including places like City Hall, inaccessible to people with mobility needs. For those people, apps such as Google Maps are not especially helpful because they show…
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One billion people in the world today live with a disability, both in visible or invisible form. They are amongst the most vulnerable and marginalised in the world. How can we design a truly inclusive world that recognises the value and worth of people living with a disability? Source: http://www.weforum.org/
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The concept of mobility encompasses far more than cars, buses, trains, taxis, bicycles and e-scooters. In their carefully researched book, Smart Cities, Smart Future (Wiley, 2018), authors Mike Barlow and Cornelia Lévy-Bencheton argue persuasively that accessibility is a primary element in successful mobility strategies
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