1 Introduction

Urban mobility is one of the main elements for the configuration of the urban structure, since people frequently need to move from a place to another. The concept of mobility has implications on accessibility and due to this reason is necessary that cities provide legislation for ensuring people traffic in an egalitarian way around the urban perimeter [6]. This need and the reality of cities in developing countries represent a gap between urban mobility provided by legislation and urban mobility experienced in the daily lives of people with physical disabilities. This gap is characterized by the fact that cities have historically been built in response to architectural preferences and budget constraints, frequently neglecting the characteristics of people who will move through sidewalks, streets, buildings, bus, and subway entrances, toilets or public agencies [8]. For example, frequently, public spaces have several stairs and few elevators; similarly, the roads have long stretches of sidewalks, however, few of them contain ramps with adequate width and/or inclination.

Considering the urban mobility issue of people with physical disabilities, there are some academic studies developed in the northern hemisphere as Rashid et al. [15], Nuojua et al. [13], Zheng et al. [19], and Tsampoulatidis et al. [17]. These studies present tools to assist the mobility of people with disabilities, however, they consider cultural, social, economic, legislative, and architectural characteristics present in the northern hemisphere, which are quite distinct from the reality found in the context of developing countries.

Therefore, this study aims to analyze the mobility issues faced by people with physical disabilities in large urban centers in the context of developing countries, more specifically in Brazil. We conducted a case study in the city of Curitiba, which has a population of around 1,7 million people. In this case study we decided not to consider small municipalities scenarios, potentially with less favorable contexts, especially to avoid the construction of victimizing scenarios [16]. In this sense, we chose Curitiba because it is a large city, which has a great diversity of urban elements and is one of the best cities in Brazil in terms of urban accessibility [4].

The analysis of mobility problems was conducted by means of a method, which is based on studies available in the literature, Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT) 9050 standards that regulate urban accessibility in Brazil, and a set of Human-Computer Interaction techniques for involving people. The method is composed of Participatory Workshops and Analysis of Route Services. In order to identify the volunteers’ profile who collaborated with the study, both activities also involved the application of a questionnaire that, in cases of severe limitations for reading and/or writing, were applied as structured interviews.

In the Participatory Workshop, which is a workshop model that uses Participatory Design techniques [11] the researchers proposed a series of discussions about mobility experiences in the city. These discussions employed Focus Group, a method that provide conditions for understanding group opinions and experiences more quickly and at lower costs than individual interviews [10]. A mediator led the Focus Group and invited the volunteers to provide opinions within the proposed theme. For this, the mediator used the Scenario technique [2], that, in the Focus Group, described concrete situations faced by physically disabled persons, in order to exemplify to the participants the situations faced in the daily life and also to foment the discussions about the subject.

In the Route Services Analysis, the researchers initially performed a Semi-structured Interview about the mobility issues found in the city, similar to the Participatory Workshop, and later carried out two activities involving maps. In the first researchers invited participants to draw a route in a printed map, based on the reading and analysis of text instructions. In the second activity, researchers invited participants to describe a route verbally by analyzing a printed map.

We conducted the activities in October/2016 and involved 29 persons from the Association of the Physically Disabled of Paraná (ADFP). The results of this research provided us some indications to understand mobility issues found in contexts of large cities in developing countries, as well as to identify new ways of describing and visualizing a route that caters to people with physical disabilities as the use of sidewalk-based routes instead of streets [9].

2 Related Work

There are several works that use computing to address problems of urban mobility, these works have different characteristics such as investigate and report problems in the city [15, 17] or calculate and provide accessible paths [7, 8]. For purposes of analysis, in this study, we selected six papers that apply urban planning methods and route calculations methods. These works will be briefly analyzed taking into account the characteristics of each one of them.

The paper of Rashid et al. [15] aims to provide conditions for wheelchairs users report accessibility problems in the urban environment in real time with a method that uses an application for Nokia N95. This application is intended to provide users with an accessible. Also, users’ reports are used to provide new routes that exclude such obstacles.

Zheng et al. [19] analyzed urban traffic and developed a system for managing and constructing traffic maps, where areas that needed adjusts to incorporate accessibility were examined through the maps generated by the application. In this method, the accessibility of a location is determined by a calculus based on a summation of the connectivity of each point of the city represented as a graph. The higher the value of the sum, less accessible is that point in the city and, consequently, that point is marked as not accessible. Once a location is marked as not accessible, the application determines whether that location needs re-planning.

The method of Tsampoulatidis et al. [17] aimed at providing conditions for citizens report problems in the city through an application, available in desktop and mobile versions. The reported problems are automatically transmitted to the public administration. This method considers, in addition to people’s opinions about problems found in the urban perimeter, the accessibility and need for urban planning.

Kulakov et al. [7] developed Social Navigator, a routing application that uses a mathematical method based on user evaluations and Dijkstra’s method for estimating accessibility. This application provides the flexibility of route variation according to individual constraints reported by users. In addition, the service also provides user feedback functionality to report the conditions of the selected route.

Menkens et al. [8] further investigated user needs through inquiries to potential users of the route planning tool. The results of the study showed that the main problems for wheelchair users are sidewalk constructions, variations in surface pavements, slope, narrow passages, holes or gaps in the streets and sidewalks. In addition, that study also showed there are different profiles of wheelchair users, in this way an accessible path for a wheelchair user is not necessarily usable for another user. For example, while an active wheelchair user (a person who is active and athletic, able to practice sports) can easily overcome low downhills or low curb ramps, however, a wheelchair user dependent on an electric wheelchair may not be able to overcome the same barriers.

Table 1 presents a comparison between the related works by means of the analysis of some characteristics defined by the authors of this study. The first two characteristics refers respectively to the availability of the application code, checking whether the application is open source and the code is publicly available; and the use of open data (i.e. data publicly available and which can be used for various purposes). The analysis of these characteristics showed that no studies use open data and a small number has open source code.

Table 1. Comparative study of Related Work
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Next, we analyzed the technological resources needed in each related work and we verified most of them use only widespread technologies as smartphones and web browsers. The fourth characteristic analyzed investigates which works directly collect information about accessibility of the city, this is an important characteristic that provides data which can be used in future studies and was only not found in the studies of Nuojua et al. [13] and Zheng et al. [19].

Other characteristics analyzed were the involvement of the population and public government in the application (in the sense of informing to the public government the problems found in the city), and the quality verification of the problems reported by the population (in the sense of accepting only reports that have at least basic information such as the location and description of the problem). We realize that the involvement of the public power and the population is still limited, however, more than a half of the papers has some form of control of the problems reported.

Finally, we analyzed the metrics employed by each application for calculating routes and verified that all methods are based on streets (rather than sidewalks, where the pedestrians circulate) and in information provided by the population.

3 Our Method

Our method is illustrated in Fig. 1. This method consists in three steps executed sequentially, each step is represented in Fig. 1 by three distinct blocks: Information Sources, Participatory Workshops and Route Services Analysis.

Fig. 1.
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Our participatory method

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In all of the activities of our method (participatory workshop, interviews and task-based activities), all participants received and signed a Informed Consent Form, which was read and explained to the volunteers.

3.1 Information Sources

The initial stage involves analysis of the literature and Brazilian urban accessibility norms. This step aims to identify what was not being addressed by the previous methods and the techniques used by those studies. To reach these objectives, we carried out a literature review. This method of literature review was chosen because it provides the researchers with an in-depth view of the existing works available in the literature. The results of this review allowed us to identify some gaps that were addressed in this research.

Next, we analyzed the particularities of ABNT 9050 [1], which is the norm that regulates urban accessibility of Brazilian cities. This observation is necessary to understand the requirements to be considered to be appropriate for Brazilian context.

Based on these results, the researchers conducted two more steps of analysis: Participatory Workshops and Route Services Analysis.

3.2 Participatory Workshops

The second step of the method employs a workshop model that uses principles and techniques of Participatory Design and is called Participatory Workshop [12]. The choice of the Participatory Workshop was motivated by the fact that this workshop format provides conditions for people democratically exposes their needs and experiences and, also, proposes how computer information systems will be adopted in their daily lives.

The participatory workshop used the Focus Group technique that, according to Morgan [10] is the most appropriate method for individuals develop opinions within a social context, through conversation with other interviewees. In a focus group the conversations are led by an interviewer/mediator who conducts the discussions in groups of three to ten people.

In the Participatory Workshop we chose to use the Scenario technique to permeate the discussions. According to Muller et al. [12] Scenarios is a technique that uses specific stories and/or events to understand concrete situations of participants’ daily lives. This technique was chosen because it provides conditions for the participants to insert themselves within the context and to participate more actively in the discussions. In the discussions, the mediator made questions about the daily life of a person with a physical disability, type of transportation used, how they travel on the city sidewalks and how they evaluate sidewalks. In these discussions, the participants had the opportunity to engage in a collective dialogue and contribute with various considerations regarding the proposed themes.

At the end of the activity researchers applied a questionnaire. Ozoki [14] defines a questionnaire as a model, online or printed with questions that the participants must answer in order to provide necessary data in a research, analysis or evaluation. Because of the objectivity of the questionnaires’ questions, we decided to use this technique to identify the profile of the interviewees. These questionnaires were also applied as a structured interview in some situations, since the researchers noted that some participants had severe reading and/or writing constraints. The structured interviews according to Vatrapu and Pérez-Quiñones [18] is a type of interview similar to a questionnaire that is composed of predetermined questions that have the characteristic of being short and clearly described, so all the participants can provide a precise answer.

The Participatory Workshop was held in to the Association of the Physically Disabled of Paraná (ADFP), a non-profit organization that provides assistance and rehabilitation to people with physical disabilities, performs physiotherapeutic medical care and promotes the practice of sports to associates. The Participatory Workshop took place at ADFP in October 2016 and was conducted by: an mediator leading the discussion and proposing scenarios, a group of 16 volunteers, and a group of researchers supporting with audio recording, video and group organization. Specifically, on the day of the Workshop, it was also the monthly meeting of families, so the peoples profile who participated in this workshop were wheelchair users, people with reduced mobility and supporters, family members, friends or caregivers.

3.3 Route Services Analysis

The third and last step of our method, articulates semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and task-based activities.

Semi-structured interviews, according to Blandford [3], combine the characteristics of unstructured interviews with structured interviews using open and closed questions. This interview model was chosen because it enables interviewers to ask questions from the script and also to make explorations from the respondents’ responses. In this stage of the work, interviews were conducted with 13 participants who has profile of wheelchair users, crutch user, or supporter. The duration of each interview lasted between 10 and 30 min. In this interviews we asked questions about the daily life of a person with a physical disability, type of transportation used, how they travel on the city sidewalks and how they evaluate sidewalks.

For these activities, two tasks were carried out with the objective of analyzing alternative approaches for presenting routes, considering accessibility aspects. The activities involved 10 of the 13 interviewees. The posture of the researchers who applied these tasks was reactive, they initially explained what was expected to be done and during the accomplishment of the tasks they intervened when questioned or when they noticed that the volunteer expressed difficulties to proceed with the activity.

Fig. 2.
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Adapted from Google Maps (http://maps.google.com)

Map used in Task 1

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Fig. 3.
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Source: Google Maps (http://maps.google.com)

Map used in the second task.

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Fig. 4.
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Adapted from Google Maps (http://maps.google.com)

Trimming from the map used in the second task with the correct dash illustrated.

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In the first task the researchers presented a printed version of Fig. 2, which contains a cut-out of a map of the downtown Curitiba and a route drawn from one point to another of the region through sidewalks, curb ramps and crosswalks. Then we invited the volunteers to describe the route presented using imperative phrases, as if they were explaining to another wheelchair user how to make the route indicated on the map.

For the second task the researchers delivered a printed version of Fig. 3, map of another region of the city accompanied by a textual sequence of 17 directions from one point to another of the map, from these materials the volunteers were asked to draw the route described following the instructions according to an excerpt of a set of instructions:

  1. 1.

    Go ahead until reach the sidewalk of André de Barros Street;

  2. 2.

    Turn left;

  3. 3.

    Go ahead until the crosswalk with Desembargador Westphalen Street...

The full dashed path is shown at Fig. 4. At the end of the activities, participants answered the questionnaires (as in the Participative Workshop).

4 Results

This section presents the results of the participatory workshop, interviews, and task-based activities. The volunteers who participated in the participatory workshop are represented in the text with initial G (G1, G2, G3, ...) and the volunteers who answered the interviews are represented with initial E (E1, E2, E3, ...).

Scenario 1: Transportation Used for Locomotion Through the City

Based on the discussion in the participatory workshop and after analyzing the speeches of the semi-structured interviews, we observed that most of the participants use the city’s public transportation. However, some of them use a bus line called AcessoFootnote 1, created and adapted specifically for people with reduced mobility.

Scenario 2: Accessibility and Issues Experienced in the City

Regarding the accessibility of the city, the 16 participants consider that the city has problems mainly on the sidewalks: “The sidewalks are not adapted for us, wheelchair users, the biggest problem is in the neighborhoods, where accessibility is precarious”, said participant E8; “I prefer to walk down the street than on sidewalks, because sidewalks always has something damaged”, as reported by E5 participant.

However, we noticed that there was no consensus about the quality of sidewalks: “Bad, lousy, horrible, even more in the region where I live”, commented participant E11; “I have already been in a few places where my sister drop my wheelchair and I go alone, so I think it is great”, said participant E12. The participant G2 compared the accessibility of urban spaces of Curitiba with the city of Washington, in the United States: “They are a thousand light years ahead of us. It is absurd, my son did not want to leave there because of the ease [for move through the sidewalks], there is not a damaged sidewalk and there is not a hole in the street. He went out with friends to catch subway. It is everything, the whole city”. The participant evidenced the disparity of the accessibility in a metropolis of a developed country with the accessibility found in a developing country.

Both wheelchair users with an athletic profile and wheelchair users who always move with help believe that sidewalks have fewer accessibility issues than other participants. Participant E7 believes that this difference of opinion can be explained by the type of disability and difficulty of the wheelchair user: “There may be five wheelchairs here, the only thing that is the same is the wheelchair, because each one has his/her own disability and his/her difficulty. So it is different, it makes a difference”.

Scenario 3: Obstacles Encountered Moving Around the City

Considering the obstacles encountered when moving around the city, the main problem pointed out by all participants is the irregularity of the sidewalks: “It is the sidewalk, ... Is too low or too high”, commented E11. In addition to the irregularity of the sidewalks, wheelchair users who are athletes consider holes a major obstacle when moving around. Wheelchair users who cross streets without help commented that other problems are the narrow sidewalks, curb ramps and the type of floor. On the other hand, wheelchair users who need help pointed out that other problems found in public roads are the curb ramps, steps, and holes,“There is no curb ramps. There is a lot of streets in Curitiba that has neither curb ramps and sometimes when curb ramp are present, after the curb ramp there is a step", commented participant E5.

Scenario 4: Slopes

Considering the difficulty of crossing steep slopes streets, 23 participants believe that the two directions have equivalent degrees of difficulty, “The two directions are hard to cross, in both of them I can get hurt if I do not control the wheelchair”, commented participant E13, “the companion need to have arm”Footnote 2, said participant G4, emphasizing that she needs support in situations like that.

Scenario 5: Longest and Most Accessible Path or Shortest Path but Without Accessibility

The researchers questioned participants about two paths, one shorter but without accessibility and the other much longer with curb ramps and crosswalks to reach from point A to point B, as presented in Fig. 5. Most of the participants reported that they would prefer to use the longer path: “The longer because it gets easier for me because I am going to take a lot more time on the short way, having to dodge the cars because I would have to go down the street and, in the long path, I’ll end up getting faster than the other”, claimed participant E3. However, three participants, with the athlete profile, mentioned that they would prefer the shortest path: “I would not do the long path, because this tires us too. In the photo here, I would steep my chair, it would fall here on the street, I would cross, and here I would ask help to arrive”, reported participant E8.

Fig. 5.
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Scenery used in the workshop

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One variable highlighted in this scenario is whether the wheelchair user is accompanied or not. “If you are accompanied, it becomes easier, but if you are alone ... for me it is impossible to push a wheelchair, because only one hand works [the volunteer has movement restriction in one of the upper limbs], so you always needs to have a person accompanying you, in my case is my son, and he is a strong man”, explained the G4 participant.

Results of Route Services Analysis

The first task (describe a route verbally) was performed by 8 participants, identified as E1, E2, ..., E8. Among the 8 participants, the participant E3 showed great difficulty in understanding what should be done. All participants carefully informed the streets that they go through and a minority, represented by the participants E4 and E5, reported in the narration that they use crosswalks, curb ramps and sidewalks when moving from one point to another of the map. We believe this can be explained by the fact that the participants informed previous experience in using map applications that only indicate the paths by the streets. The ability of participants E4 and E5 to inform more elements than others participants can be explained by the fact that both had access to higher education and are more proficient in using computer technologies when compared to the others. Another interesting point is that not all participants reported the direction (right/left) that they would follow. The result of the first task is shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Elements pointed out by Task 1 participants
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The analysis of the second task results was based on the routes drawn by participants on the given maps. None of the participants clearly represented that routes passed through sidewalks. The lines of the drawing crossed the center of the streets on the maps and not the edges of the blocks where the sidewalks are. This led to two hypotheses, one is that the text used is not communicating well that it is based on sidewalks and another is that previous experience of the participants with applications of geolocation based on streets influenced in this way to represent the routes. From the volunteers of this activity, 4 reported that they already used Maps and GPS applications on smartphones. Based on this we believe that the other participants have little experience with Maps applications, consequently both hypotheses could be true.

Everyone reached the destination, but there were several errors. The commands that most resulted in errors are those that followed the following pattern: “Cross the street [Name of the Street] in the crosswalk”, the participants were confused to define what tracks they were supposed to cross, and in some cases they crossed and they went ahead in the streets indicated. Some participants did not follow the commands until the end and traced the routes by paths they already knew of the city, this may prove that the commands are still complex resulting in the withdrawal of some participants to follow them.

Analysis of the Questionnaires

Based on the questionnaire responses, it was possible to verify that of the 29 respondents 14 (48%) identified themselves as wheelchair users, 5 (17%) identified as friends, spouses, supporters or relatives of a wheelchair user and 10 (34%) were identified as belonging to another profile, among those belonging to another profile there are those who use walking sticks or crutches to move around the city, and also people with other disabilities related to mobility who can walk without objects of support.

Among the group of wheelchair users, segmentation by profiles occurred as follows: 4 (29%) identified themselves as independent wheelchairs users and who easily make long journeys through the city; 7 (50%) have identified themselves as wheelchair users who can easily make some paths, but eventually need support to overcome through some barriers and/or to make long journeys through the city; and 3 (21%) identified themselves as wheelchair users with great difficulty to move through the city, who always need support to overcome barriers in the city.

Regarding the gender issue, it is possible to verify that among the sample analyzed the majority of the users of wheelchairs are men (71%). All wheelchair users who identified themselves as independent profile are men, such percentage can be justified by the fact that men are culturally more physically strong and therefore are able to overcome obstacles more easily. In contrast, all people who identified themselves as supporters of a wheelchair user reported that are women, this percentage occurs due to the social role assigned to women by the patriarchal society, some of them are mothers, and others are professional caregivers.

Among those interviewed, 5 (17%) did not finished elementary school, 11 (38%) did not finished high school, 10 (34%) completed high school and 6 (21%) higher education (complete or incomplete). Of those with complete or incomplete Higher Education, all reported using smartphones, while among those who finished only high school, the number of smartphone users dropped to 70%; Finally, only 54% among volunteers who did not finish high school use smartphones.

5 Final Considerations

This work investigated the problems of urban mobility faced by people with physical disabilities in the Brazilian context through a method composed by three steps: Information Sources, Participatory Workshops and Route Services Analysis.

In Information Sources, the researchers were able to understand research gaps found in the literature. The Participatory Workshop phase employed Scenarios and Focus Group as techniques to promote the discussions. We realized that accessibility is important for mobility in urban spaces, also the main problems found in the city are related to the sidewalks. In the Route Services Analysis phase, Task-Based Activities involving two maps evidenced the participants’ experience with map applications that take into consideration only the streets, as Google Maps and OpenStreetMapFootnote 3, also the need to adjust the textual instructions proposed by the researchers aiming at providing richer accessibility-related directions.

The questionnaires applied in the Participatory Workshop and in the Route Services Analysis phases pointed out that most of the volunteers declare themselves as wheelchair users. However other profiles emerged, for example, independent wheelchair user and dependent wheelchair user. Another aspect observed is that most of the respondents declared themselves as disabled and men, reflecting data from the National Health Survey of 2013 [5], while most of caregivers are women.

We hoped that this research can be extended to other large urban centers with a similar size of Curitiba. We did not investigate whether this study would apply to small towns, villages and peripheries, but we acknowledge that these scenarios differ in comparison to large centers in quantity of urban elements and in the habits adopted by people. For example, small towns have reduced traffic and it is common for many people to walking on the street and not to use the crosswalk.

Future works involve prototyping and development of applications for smartphones with textual description and graphical representation of the routes; a study about the difficulties of different profiles of people with physical disabilities associated to the different problems of accessibility in urban crossings; proposing tools to assist municipalities in urban planning, based on accessibility data reported by users.