Happiness is in the journey: A different view on accessibility in the cycling city

Accessibility-oriented planning has emerged as a leading paradigm in urban transport planning. It is based on the idea that the ultimate goal of the transport system is not to provide people with the ability to move per se (i.e. mobility), but rather with the ability to reach their desired destinations (i.e. accessibility). Prioritising accessibility is widely regarded to enhance sustainability in cities, and promote the uptake of active transport modes such as cycling.

However, in the way in which we currently think about and measure accessibility, the trip towards the destination has no value in itself. It is reduced to nothing more than a demand derived from the need to reach the destination. That is, mobility is solely seen as a cost that should be minimised. Usually, this cost is expressed as travel time, although several scholars have stressed the need to include different types of monetary, societal and environmental costs as well. But in any case, it remains a disutility. Recent research has challenged this dominating view of mobility as a disutility, and proposed alternative narratives that instead underpin the benefits of mobility: a way to experience positive mental states, to socially interact, to develop senses of place and belonging, and to increase well-being (Te Brömmelstroet et al, 2022). Hence, mobility is something that has value in itself, and can provide us with many different pleasurable experiences. This is especially true when you walk or cycle, since the interaction you have with your environment is much stronger than when travelling by car, allowing you to actively develop your core human capacities (Ferdman, 2021).

We believe that these alternative narratives should be integrated in the way we think about accessibility, and how we measure it. If mobility is more than just a disutility, it may actually positively influence our perceptions of accessibility. Our hypothesis is that pleasurable experiences during the trip to the desired destination can make the destination itself be perceived as more accessible. If this holds true, it means that we can improve accessibility by designing streets in a way that fosters such experiences (e.g. through green, shared spaces with many possibilities for social interactions), even if this means that it may take longer to reach the desired destinations than if we would design the street in a way that prioritises fast and efficient travel (e.g. bicycle highways).

Ongoing developments in data collection and data analysis tools have made it a realistic goal to integrate these alternative views into quantitative frameworks that assess accessibility. For example, by combining quantitative emotion sensing with qualitative questionnaires in mixed-method approaches, we are able to measure how people experience different environments they move through. Augmented reality can extend this into computer-generated environments that do not yet exist in the real world. Furthermore, with bottom-up simulation models of human movement we may assess how different street designs are fostering social interactions. In a next step, automated interpretation of (generated) imagery through GeoAI can help us to evaluate planning scenarios based on the developed insights.

Considering the above, we hope to spark a fruitful discussion dealing with the following two core questions. Can pleasurable experiences during a cycling trip influence how accessible we perceive the destination to be? How can data science be of use as a tool to integrate such influences into quantitative frameworks that assess accessibility?