Subjective safety in urban areas

31.07.2024 - As part of the research project "Subjective Safety & Urban Space: Mobility Decisions of Young People" (SuSi), mobility researchers at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences (HSRM) are investigating how social and infrastructural factors can be taken into account as ideally as possible in Mobility Management in order to improve the subjective sense of safety of road users. The scientific investigation of the relevant influencing factors is intended to support the development of a gender-sensitive transport policy that makes mobility fairer and more accessible for all genders.

Global urbanization trends have led to mobility behavior in urban areas increasingly becoming the focus of mobility researchers. The mobility behavior of young people in particular is of crucial interest here, as their experiences and their associated subjective sense of safety have a long-term impact on their choice of transport. The SuSi research project is concerned with this - how this subjective safety can be defined and made visible - as well as the influence of infrastructural and social factors on it. The researchers from the Mobility Management department at RheinMain University of Applied Sciences are being funded by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts (HMWK) with 24,600 euros for the first project phase in 2024.

Safety preference influences transportation decisions

"It can be assumed that young people's mobility behavior is influenced by their personal perception of safety. Risks are avoided, we prefer a feeling of safety," explains Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martina Lohmeier, project manager and professor of Mobility Management and Cycling. This individual perception of safety can be influenced by various infrastructural factors, such as a lack of infrastructure for cycling or local public transport, high costs when using local public transport or dangers in road traffic. However, social factors also have a potential impact, including gender and gender identity, age, native language and various physical and mental abilities. Taken together, these factors of one's own social identity have an essential impact on how young people move around in public spaces, which means of transport they use and how they behave in interaction with other road users.

The goal of the SuSi research project is to find out what subjective safety means for young people in concrete terms, how the subjective perception of safety is influenced by social and infrastructural factors and how it can be made visible. Building on this, the researchers in the Mobility Management specialist group are designing scenarios to increase subjective safety and deriving recommendations for the area of influence of gender mainstreaming as well as measures for gender planning, i.e. taking into account the needs of diverse stakeholder groups. In this way, the development of a gender-sensitive transport policy can be supported in the future in order to make mobility fairer and more accessible for all genders.

About the research project