Mobile Experience Research Articles

Public Transport in the Disabling City: A Narrative Ethnography of Dilemmas and Strategies of People with Mobility Disabilities

Access to transport is key to people’s movement in cities, their social participation, and personal development. People with mobility disabilities (PMDs) face additional barriers when using public transport. The objective of this study is to identify the dilemmas that PMDs face in their daily mobility practices and their coping strategies, in particular the ways in which these dilemmas and strategies are influenced by both personal and environmental characteristics. We conducted ethnographic research, utilizing narrative interviews, life stories, focus groups, and participant observations. Our aim was to analyse multiple experiences of mobility in situations of disability in Quebec City, Canada. This study engages the following research question: how do PMDs navigate their social environment, considering the impact of personal, social, and physical landscape factors on their mobility strategies? Depending on the accessibility of fixed-route public buses and the availability of public paratransit services, what are the dilemmas that PMDs face and how do they shape their mobility strategies? Using the three-dimensional model of narrative analysis, we present a narrative ethnography of participants’ dilemmas and strategies about their experiences on public transport. Five dilemmas are examined. Through this methodology, we propose to extend the study of “constellations of mobility” by including the notion of strategies as an experiential outcome between personal and physical landscape factors, practices, and meanings of mobility. This offers new research perspectives both in disability and mobility studies and in the understanding of urban accessibility experiences in situations of disability.

Artificial intelligence motivated flexible single-electrode mode multilayer triboelectric sensor for smart mobility systems

Triboelectric tactile sensing technique is increasingly coming into people’s lives to bring convenience, so that there is an urgent necessity for this technique to be applied to smart mobility to increase safety and enhance the mobility experience. Herein, a single-electrode mode multilayer triboelectric sensor (MTS) motivated by artificial intelligence (AI) is proposed, which consists of styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS)/ poly (vinylida-ene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE) nanofibers (NFs) film as the friction layer and substrate, laser-induced graphene (LIG)/molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) as the charge trapping layer, and Ag as the electrode. The MTS exhibits remarkable sensing performance, such as a wide response range of 5–100 N, 0.4–2 Hz multi-frequency response capability, and non-contact sensing, as well as distinguished self-powered performance. To demonstrate the practical significance of the proposed MTS, two applications are explored specifically after equipping with AI, including: (i) a smart in-vehicle system is constructed, which consists of unlocking section and multifunctional control with early warning section. (ii) a smart car control system is implemented, which can carry out special tasks instead of humans. These applications provide reliable ways to promote the development of human-machine interaction and smart mobility, as well as help to make lifestyles and mobility smarter, safer and more convenient.

“It’s not that I don’t like it here, it’s just that I eventually want to live somewhere else”: young refugees’ contested arrival experiences, local racialized discourses and emergent future selves in Amsterdam

ABSTRACT Although the urban fabric is often associated with relevant infrastructures that foster young refugees’ experiences of settlement and future imagining, a critical notion of place remains largely absent from the literature. This paper investigates refugee youths’ urban arrival and settlement processes by examining the role of public space, place and identity in their imagination of possible future selves. We use place identity as a dynamic, translocal and contested concept to explore how future selves are emplaced in multiple and contradictory ways. The paper reports on an eight-month ethnographic study in an underprivileged neighborhood in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that is characterized by functionalism, social housing and a high concentration of refugee arrivals. We find that personal referents of public neighborhood places are important for nurturing young refugees’ specific hardships and traumas that threaten future self-imagination. We further demonstrate how momentary belongings due to diverse yet intertwined neighborhood identities foster the emergence of multiple possible future selves. Lastly, we show how local racialized discourses of place endanger and “trap” possible future self-concepts. We conclude that urban refugee youths’ future self-imaginations develop alongside multiple contested places and temporalities, and contribute to a relational understanding of urban processes and experiences of forced mobility and displacement.

IoT based Smart Parking System Using Bluetooth

This paper presents an IoT-based smart parking system utilizing Bluetooth technology to efficiently manage parking spaces in urban environments. The system integrates Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) sensors installed in parking spots with a central server and a mobile application. BLE sensors detect the presence of vehicles and transmit this information to the server, which updates the availability status in real-time. Users can access the availability status via a mobile app, allowing them to locate and reserve parking spaces conveniently. The system improves parking efficiency, reduces congestion, and enhances the overall urban mobility experience. Keywords: 1.Arduino IDE program software. 2.Development board ESP8266. 3.Communication devices. 4.Sensors.

Dynamic Pricing and Route Guidance: A Multi-Agent System for Effective Parking and Traffic Management

In a city center that is usually flooded with traffic, finding a parking space is a challenge for most commuters. Searching for parking generates additional urban traffic, increases energy consumption and vehicle emissions, and wastes time. This study examines how parking systems can be used as an effective tool for reducing traffic congestion. It proposes a new, smart approach to parking using real-time dynamic pricing and route guidance in a multi-agent system to better align supply and demand, thereby reducing both congestion and the amount of time spend by drivers searching for parking. To examine the effects of dynamic parking pricing on road traffic, we conducted a multi-agent open-source framework to simulate spatiotemporal distributions of daily individual activity. By extending MATSim, we were able to model parking usage more realistically. We developed several micro-simulation scenarios to evaluate strategy performance for both on-street and off-street parking in the city center of Tunis, Tunisia. The results show that dynamic pricing policies can be used to plan and manage parking areas more efficiently, minimizing the dispersion of parking occupancy lots. Variations in parking prices were shown to increase parking lot vacancies and reduce traffic congestion. Moreover, the system can also generate increased revenue for government and private-sector parking authorities while improving driver satisfaction. Finally, the parking dynamic pricing strategy promises a convenient mobility experience, while increasing efficiency and reducing the negative externalities of urban transportation.

The three I's of downward income mobility: A directional subgroup decomposable measure

AbstractThe Foster‐Greer‐Thorbecke class of indices and the TIP curve have become classical tools to measure poverty. In this paper we adapt these indices and curve to the income mobility literature and measure downward income mobility considering its three dimensions of incidence, intensity, and inequality. This strategy allows us to incorporate reference dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity, features emphasized as welfare determinants in Prospect Theory. We propose the use of a class of measures and a Three I's of Downward Mobility curve as a useful graphical device in the income growth framework. Based on this curve we can evaluate the degree of regressivity (or progressivity) of income losses. We provide an empirical illustration for Spain in two recent recession periods. Results show that even if for most households the pandemic shock was not as severe as the Great Recession, some sociodemographic groups had a more similar downward mobility experience in both crises.

Sensing the past along Britain’s A roads

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to explore the particular characteristics of British A-roads by focusing upon a motoring journey from Slough to Torquay. This trip was undertaken as part of an extended motoring adventure by two Indian tourists in 1955, and exactly the same route was followed in 2023 by the authors. Informed by the interviews and records of the tourists, we scrutinized the infrastructure of the A-roads along which we travelled, as well as the roadside features and the wider landscape beyond. In becoming sensorially and affectively attuned to the distinctive qualities of these roads by the memories of the tourists and our own impressions, we underline how motoring opens up diverse experiences of mobility and roadscape according to the motivations and purpose of journeys, the particular landscape traversed through, the attunements of the car’s inhabitants, and the infrastructural and formal characteristics of the road. Further, we emphasize how the details we identify disclose how roads and motoring are saturated with recollections of other people, our own prior journeys by car and mediatized memories. Above all, we argue, the material signifiers of past function and experience that are encountered offer powerful evidence that roadscapes are ever-changing, dynamic realms, culturally and historically shaped in myriad ways.

Disposable People as Infrastructure? The Livelihood Trials and Tactics of Three-Wheeler Delivery Drivers on Hanoi’s Streets, Vietnam

The Vietnamese state is envisioning Hanoi as a prosperous, ‘civilised’ capital city with fast, ‘modern’ mobilities and their corresponding infrastructures, including expressways and an elevated railway. Concurrently, slower informal paratransit are increasingly discouraged and marginalised, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of three-wheeler motorbike delivery drivers. Despite official registration as disabled war veterans, ‘real’ three-wheeler drivers find themselves in an ever more conscribed environment, while other drivers attempting to maintain livelihoods in this way are deemed ‘fake’ by officials and further ostracised. Drawing on conceptual debates regarding people as infrastructure and mobility (in)justice, and ethnographic fieldwork with three-wheeler drivers, I detail how drivers (both ‘real’ and ‘fake’) must negotiate inconsistent policies, a growing discourse that they are obsolete and hence disposable, and new infrastructures incompatible with their livelihoods. Combined, these elements create specific mobility experiences and frictions to which drivers react with subtle and inventive tactics to maintain their rights to the city’s streets.

“I Rarely Go Out on Work Days”: Space–Time Constraints and (Im)mobility Experiences Among Indonesian Female Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

Female domestic workers (FDWs) experience space–time constraints and mobility challenges corresponding to their demanding daily work responsibilities. Studies have shown that FDWs’ mobility and activities are primarily dictated by their employers through work tasks. It is unclear, though, how FDWs’ activity and mobility patterns outside their employers’ homes are shaped by individual and contextual factors, including government policies that mandate that FDWs be granted a rest day. Using an activity space approach combined with multilevel modeling, I evaluated mobility and activity patterns on work and rest days for a sample of Indonesian FDWs in Hong Kong. Data were collected using innovative online activity diaries and were triangulated with qualitative data from WhatsApp follow-up conversations. This research uncovers that FDWs’ activity patterns differ significantly between work and rest days. FDWs rarely go outside on workdays except to perform work-related tasks. On the rest day, FDWs’ activity spaces are much more expansive as they conduct social and personal activities that are essential for maintaining their well-being. By comparing work and rest days, this research deepens our understanding of geographical, social, and temporal aspects of FDWs’ space–time constraints and (im)mobility experiences that encompass and go beyond employer-assigned tasks. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate the benefits of rest day policies for enhancing the visibility of marginalized women in public spaces, particularly in the context of FDWs’ restrictive space–time constraints.

Coping with darkness: residents’ experience of reduced outdoor lighting in neighbourhoods

Despite ongoing replacement of old lighting installations with new energy-efficient light emitting diodes, the energy crisis has led to the implementation of strategies for reducing energy use for public outdoor lighting in neighbourhood environments. This would save money and reduce light pollution; however, the situations should be evaluated from the residents’ perspective. This paper presents a pilot study, which aimed to explore how residents experience and respond to reduced outdoor lighting in their neighbourhoods during dark hours, by applying the adapted Human-Environment Interaction model to understand the relation between outdoor lighting quality, neighbourhood quality and local independent mobility from the residents’ perspective. The pilot study was based on a short questionnaire (N =76, 29 males, 47 females, Mage = 66.66 years) and telephone or online interviews (N = 13, 5 males, 8 females, Mage = 68.08 years) with the residents living in the neighbourhood areas, in Southern Sweden, where strategies were employed for reducing the use of public outdoor lighting. Data were collected between February and March 2023. Overall, the results affirmed the important role of outdoor lighting quality in residents’ experience of neighbourhood environments and local independent mobility (i.e. the ability of residents to walk or move around on their own in their neighbourhood area), whereas the effect of reduced outdoor lighting was rather insignificant. The interviews further showed different experiences of the reduced outdoor lighting and how the residents coped with the lighting conditions by using solutions (i.e. headlamps, flashlights, bike lamps and reflectors), and that high-level perceived safety from crime in the neighbourhoods was found to play an important role in local independent mobility during dark hours. The adapted conceptual model allowed for the evaluation of outdoor lighting conditions considering both internal and external factors from the residents’ perspective, and could provide a basis for discussion about potential changes in public outdoor lighting.

Uncovering the Missing Pieces: Predictors of Nonresponse in a Mobile Experience Sampling Study on Media Effects Among Youth.

Mobile Experience Sampling (MES) is a promising tool for understanding youth digital media use and its effects. Unfortunately, the method suffers from high levels of missing data. Depending on whether the data is randomly or non-randomly missing, it can have severe effects on the validity of findings. For this reason, we investigated predictors of non-response in an MES study on displacement effects of digital media use on adolescents' well-being and academic performance (N = 347). Multilevel binary logistic regression identified significant influencing factors of response odds, such as afternoon beeps and being outside. Importantly, adolescents with poorer school grades were more likely to miss beeps. Because this missingness was related to the outcome variable, modern missing data methods such as multiple imputation should be applied before analyzing the data. Understanding the reasons for non-response can be seen as the first step to preventing, minimizing, and handling missing data in MES studies, ultimately ensuring that the collected data is fully utilized to draw accurate conclusions.

Gender and the Displaced Worker in Contemporary France: Women, Mobility, and Economic Restructuring Beyond the Industrial Heartlands

AbstractA considerable proportion of the research conducted within the developing field of deindustrialisation studies has focused on the loss of work in industrial closures, and on the attachments that long-serving workers feel to their former workplace. This article focuses instead on the phenomenon of constrained mobility which often occurs as companies restructure and workers are offered a choice between redundancy or relocation to another site. Steven High (2003) has examined the ‘transplanted identities’ of male workers who had moved repeatedly as plants downsized and closed across the American rust belt, highlighting a group who styled themselves as the ‘I-75 gypsies’ (after the interstate highway that runs through Michigan and Ohio). Forging a new identity articulated in terms of mobility rather than place, these men constructed a new version of heroic working-class masculinity as they moved from site to site. This article draws on a case study of the Moulinex domestic appliance company in north western France to examine how such mobility has been experienced by women workers in a region beyond the industrial heartlands. In doing so, it considers the particular relationship to place that was constructed as companies like Moulinex established factories in rural regions of France after the Second World War and the implications of this for work-based identities. The article highlights the intersecting effects of age and gender, the significance of the gendered division of labour for women's experiences of mobility, and the extent to which identities were reshaped as women moved to stay in work.

Encountering infrastructural interruptions and maintaining transnational lives amongst foreigners in China

ABSTRACT Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews with foreign scholars in China (hereafter ‘FSC’), this paper examines the impact of various infrastructural interruptions on the transnational lives of mobile individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how the labour of maintenance and resourceful quick-fixes employed by FSC constitute infrastructuring strategies in times of isolation and uncertainty. Specifically, the paper first asks how specific COVID-19-induced infrastructural barriers, such as tightened visa policies, mandatory PCR testing for border crossing, and suspended flights, intersect with the (im)mobility experiences and trajectories of FSC. Second, the paper investigates how these individuals navigate and cope with infrastructural glitches by fashioning a set of infrastructuring strategies to maintain transnational lives within the pandemic context. In doing so, this paper develops a deeper understanding of not only the generative but also destructive capacities of infrastructural processes in terms of their transformative effects on migrant identities, aspirations and lived experiences, further revealing the fragility, incompleteness and situationality embedded in migration infrastructures. More critically, this paper theorises how infrastructural interruptions constitute the necessary social-temporal conditions in which individuals’ infrastructuring strategies emerge through acts of waiting, adaptation and maintenance.

The Role of English Language Support Programs on International Academic Mobility of University Students in Shandong College of Economics and Business, China

This paper explores the pivotal role of English language support programs in shaping the international academic mobility experiences of university students at Shandong College of Economics and Business, China. Conducting a quantitative study involving 150 participants engaged in international academic mobility, the research investigates the impact of language support initiatives, identifies challenges faced by students, and gathers suggestions for program improvement. Results reveal significant improvements in English language proficiency, academic performance, and overall satisfaction among participants. Challenges encountered, including language barriers, cultural adjustment, academic rigor, and social integration, underscore the complexities of global academic experiences. Participants' suggestions for program improvement, emphasizing increased language practice opportunities, enhanced cultural preparation, additional academic support, and more social events, provide actionable insights for program refinement. This study contributes to the broader discourse on the internationalization of higher education, emphasizing the transformative potential of language support programs in fostering successful global academic mobility experiences. The findings hold implications for institutions globally seeking to optimize language support initiatives for an increasingly diverse student body and nurture globally competent citizens.

Perspectives, aspirations and perceived support students with low economic and cultural capital in the university in Spain and Dominican Republic

This paper investigates the characteristics and both material and emotional costs of upward social mobility through university education in Spain and the Dominican Republic. A comparative qualitative study has been carried out, based on biographical-narrative interviews, with a sample of 6 Dominican students and 9 Spanish students coming from an economically disadvantaged background. The results show the social mobility experiences and expectations of the participants and their families, with different nuances in the two contexts. The need to combine study with work is one of the main costs of university. The primary coping strategy in both countries is material and symbolic family support, but additional coping mechanisms to persist in studies are also evident. The conclusions highlight both the perspectives developed by the participants and the critical role of structural dimensions (social background, national context, recent history, economy, social values, culture, religious beliefs) in understanding their experiences in the university context.

“Beyond the kitchen door”: Racialised female domestic labourer’s mobility experiences in Anna Muylaert’s The Second Mother

The successful Brazilian fictional film The Second Mother (Que horas ela volta?, 2015), directed by Anna Muylaert, illustrates that mobility is chiefly limited or stagnant for the main character, Val (Regina Case), a live-in racialised female domestic labourer who migrates from the Brazilian northeast to the southeast to work in the house of a wealthy family in São Paulo. However, the film subtly shapes Val’s mobility as a more active, unrestrained experience once her daughter arrives in town ten years later. My goal is to understand the fundamental factors influencing Val’s range of motions. Building upon on the cultural geography notion of mobility as a socially produced movement of time and space, I look at how control over Val’s ability to move derives from the embodiment of practices of power built on derogatory discourses around the ideas of the doméstica (“maid”) and the domestic spatial and interpersonal emotional relations ingrained in class, gender, and the racial dimensions of Brazil’s former colonial, plantation-based patriarchal society. On the other hand, Val begins to disembody the powerful practices that previously controlled her mobility. I argue that the spatial, social, emotional, and bodily mobility gained by Val, echoing the Brazilian period of empowerment for the working classes, reflects gains from law such as PEC das Domésticas EC 72/2013 and Lei Complementar 150/2015.

How Young Italians Negotiate and Redefine Their Identity in the Mobility Experience

In this article we analyze the formation of different identity models of Italian young people experiencing mobility. The article contributes to study the link between youth mobility and identity. It does so through the development of a theoretical perspective that combines Butler’s post-structuralism with Bourdieu’s category of embodied cultural capital. Drawing on this theoretical framework, we analyze the identity formation of young Italians who emigrated to Australia in the last 10 years. The data show the emergence of an identity made up of a complex set of interconnected levels, composed of an incorporated dimension that constitutes the basis of their roots and the performative part that represents the mobile dimension subject to transformation in the course of life evolution. This interpretative lens enables the understanding of how the process of incorporation is connected to the performative and self-transformative one of identity, but also how the different combination of fixed and mobile aspects defines different profiles of identity and a different way of perceiving being Italians.

Forced migration and psychological distress among migrants in transit through Mexico

Objective. To assess the presence of psychological distress among non-Mexican migrants in-transit through Mexico, and to evaluate the association of forced migration and psychological distress in this population. Materials and methods. Cross-sectional survey of a non-probability sample of non-Mexican migrants in six shelters in Mexico, November 2021 - May 2022. We assessed psychological distress with the PHQ-4, and defined forced migration as migration motivated by social or political conflict, violence or insecurity, natural disasters or sexual identity. We analyzed the association between forced migration and psychological distress, adjusting by other variables, by means of negative binomial regression. Results. Out of 2,355 participants, 52.2% were forced migrants, and 51% of all participants had PHQ-4 scores in the mild-severe range. Forced migration was associated with higher PHQ-4 scores (coefficient 0.11, p=.004), as were experiences of violence before the journey (coefficient 0.16, p<.001) and violence during the journey (coefficient .09, p=.013). Conclusion. Our results confirm that persons who leave their countries of origin because of forced mobility experience more psychological distress than other types of migrants. It is important to address the mental health needs of this group of migrants in transit through Mexico.

A Systematic Review on Security Attacks and Countermeasures in Automotive Ethernet

In the past years, the automotive industry has experienced a technological revolution driven by the increasing demand of connectivity and data to develop driver-assistance systems and autonomous vehicles, and improve the mobility experience. To provide higher bandwidth in in-vehicle communication networks, carmakers are choosing Ethernet technology, which becomes Automotive Ethernet (AE) when applied in in-vehicle communication networks. However, with the rise of vehicle connectivity, the cybersecurity of vehicle systems has become a primary concern for the automotive industry. To address this issue, we conducted a systematic review, deeply analyzing the impact of AE on security and safety, and comparing it with the current in-vehicle communication solutions like Controller Area Network protocol. We retrieved the key security attacks and mitigations proposed in the current literature to highlight their significance, including a mapping between the regulation UNECE WP.29 R155 and the retrieved answers. We found that the industry has only implemented some automotive-dedicated Ethernet solutions to date. In the near future, the vehicle and road ecosystems may require more exclusive automotive solutions to meet specific constraints such as low latency. Our results can provide a comprehensive baseline, both for industry and academia, for the current and future development of AE.

A qualitative exploration of community mobility experiences of wheelchair users.

Freedom of movement, which is dependent on community mobility, is a key contributor to good quality of life and important in the establishment of a person's community identity. To describe the community mobility experiences of wheelchair users who lived in a socio-economically challenged setting. The study setting was Paarl, a peri-urban area of the Western Cape province of South Africa. This article reports findings from phase 1 (a reflection on past community mobility and minibus taxi use experiences) of cycle 1 of a co-operative inquiry. Nine adult wheelchair users, eight caregivers, six minibus taxi drivers, and four community stakeholders participated. Data were collected during a focus group discussion and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Four themes, 'Knowledge, attitudes, and actions', 'Natural, manmade and mechanical environmental barriers', 'Health and safety concerns' and 'Poor community participation and quality of life' were identified. The themes showed how difficult an everyday activity like moving around in the community were for wheelchair users, and how that limited their community involvement. Wheelchair users living in a low-income peri-urban area struggled to participate in community activities meaningful to them because various barriers hampered community wheelchair mobility and minibus taxi use. The findings regarding community mobility struggles and specifically minibus taxi access guided specific recommendations and the further phases and cycles of the co-operative inquiry. The purpose of the co-operative inquiry was to allow co-researchers to find their voice and develop solutions to minibus taxi access for wheelchair users.