ISINNOVA, a leading research institute based in Rome (Italy) is proud to announce that our Vice President and Lead Researcher, Silvia Gaggi, was featured in the prestigious HORIZON The EU Research and Innovation Magazine. The spotlight was on our recently completed three-year inclusive mobility project, DIGNITY (DIGital traNsport In and for socieTY), which aimed to address disparities in the uptake of digitalised mobility solutions across Europe.
About the DIGNITY project
Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, DIGNITY embarked on a journey to understand the digital transport ecosystem from both user and provider perspectives. The project built on an identification of digitalisation challenges to design, test and validate the DIGNITY approach, a novel concept promoted as the ‘ABCs for a digital inclusive transport system‘.
The project aimed at developing a comprehensive understanding of the digital divide in metropolitan and regional contexts, considering all elements of the digital transport ecosystem, from the institutional framework (macro level), to the digital mobility offer (meso level), to the needs of end users (micro level). Using proven inclusive design methodologies and foresight analysis principles, DIGNITY explored how a structured involvement of all mobility and transport stakeholders, including local institutions, market players, and end-users, can bridge the digital gap by co-creating more inclusive mobility solutions and formulating user-centred policy frameworks.
Project achievements and results
As Gaggi noted in her interview with HORIZON,
“We take too many things for granted – computers, tablets, smartphones, credit cards. But not everyone has access to them”.
Indeed, the DIGNITY project highlighted how technological progress can inadvertently leave certain population groups behind. The project emphasized how digital advances in transport, while generally welcomed, can exclude certain groups such as the poor, the elderly, migrants, people with disabilities and those living in rural areas.
For example, the project found that in Italy, 89% of older people are likely to be excluded from accessing a smartphone app that requires installation and mobile internet. In Germany, over 50% of disabled people have little confidence in planning a trip using a smartphone, while in Barcelona, Spain, over a quarter of people with low education levels have never used the internet on a smartphone.
“DIGNITY raised awareness of the digital divide in transport and the need to bridge this gap,” said Gaggi.
The project culminated in the development of a ‘toolkit‘ to help local and regional governments make transport systems more accessible, with recommendations to involve users in the design of specific products using an ‘Inclusive Design Wheel’ (IDW) adapted to the scope by one of the project’s academic partners.
DIGNITY’s impact
“DIGNITY is about building a culture of dignity for all stakeholders in a transport ecosystem,” Gaggi notes.
This commitment to inclusivity has been demonstrated in four pilot cities/regions: Tilburg (NL), Barcelona (ES), Ancona (IT) and Flanders (BE), where DIGNITY worked with representatives of vulnerable groups to improve access to and use of digital mobility services.
In Tilburg, the project found that elderly people needed a direct telephone line for assistance when travelling. In response, the municipality produced a leaflet listing the main transport providers in Tilburg and a helpdesk contact number. Distributed at train and bus stationsand in locations often visited by older people, this initiative underscored the importance of digital services to complement, rather than replace, personal contact with digital transport services to enhance accessibility.
ISINNOVA’s role and partnerships
As project coordinator, ISINNOVA was responsible for the overall management of the project, as well as for dissemination and communication, including the design, creation and maintenance of the DIGNITY learning community platform. DIGNITY partners included renowned academic institutions, research organisations and municipal transport actors such as Mobiel 21, Breda University of Applied Sciences, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, IZT, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge, FACTUAL, Barcelona Regional, GEMEENTE TILBURG, Nextbike GmbH, Municipality of Ancona, MyCicero, Conerobus and Departement Mobiliteit en Openbare Werken.
For more information on the DIGNITY project, please visit www.dignity-project.eu. For any queries, please contact Silvia Gaggi at sgaggi@isinnova.org.
