Accessibility issues and needs that were identified
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providing means for older adults to participate in urban planning;
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solve accessibility/mobility issues by collecting, visualising and sharing relevant, up to date and area specific data to inform decision making;
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create datasets of interesting and enjoyable places to assist in future planning efforts;
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measuring travel-time in Helsinki region considering needs of older citizens.
Solutions to these needs will be piloted with the following three use cases:
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feedback on accessibility issues - piloted in Vuosaari
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point of Interest - piloted in Vuosaari
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travel-Time Matrix - piloted in the whole metropolitan area
Accessibility issues and needs that were identified
-
providing means for older adults to participate in urban planning;
-
solve accessibility/mobility issues by collecting, visualising and sharing relevant, up to date and area specific data to inform decision making;
-
create datasets of interesting and enjoyable places to assist in future planning efforts;
-
measuring travel-time in Helsinki region considering needs of older citizens.
Solutions to these needs will be piloted with the following three use cases:
-
feedback on accessibility issues - piloted in Vuosaari
-
point of Interest - piloted in Vuosaari
-
travel-Time Matrix - piloted in the whole metropolitan area
technology approach
architecture. integration. platform
technology approach
Publications
CONFERENCE ARTICLE
Eneko Osaba, Silvia Urra, Age-Friendly Route Planner: Calculating Comfortable Routes for Senior Citizens” Article submitted for WorldCist23 (11th World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies).
Relevance to URBANAGE: The Age-Friendly Route Planner (AFRP) was developed within URBANAGE. The aim was to offer a new route planning algorithm designed for older citizens as conventional or public route planners don't take key factors into account. Amongst the key factors, we remind: resting places, toilets, drinking water spots, handrails or vertical mobility infrastructure.
SPRINGER BOOK - under writing
21c, AIV, Decide Better: Open and Interoperable Local Digital Twins
Relevance to URBANAGE: URBANAGE is mentioned as a Local Digital Twin use case.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Local Digital Twins for integrated urban planning: challenges and potentials.
Relevance to URBANAGE: It will explain how digital twins can be a useful tool for planning age-friendly cities.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Andoni Aranguren Ubierna, Ibai Laña, Eneko Osaba, Silvia Urra-Uriarte, "Isochrone Overlapping: A Novel Approach to Mobility and Infrastructure Planning" (IEEE ITSC2023).
Relevance to URBANAGE: The mobility and infrastructural planning approach named Isochrone Overlapping that is proposed in this paper was developed within URBANAGE to help urban planners locate the most suitable location to build new services regarding the Age-Friendliness Index.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Relevance to URBANAGE: In this article, we link the much-discussed concepts of 20-minute neighbourhoods/15-minute cities to a discussion around equity considerations concerning age: accessibility in the city does not work equally well for all of its residents, in particular for older people.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Delgado-Enales, P. Molina-Costa, and J. Del Ser, "A framework to improve urban accessibility and environmental conditions in age-friendly cities using graph modeling and multi-objective optimization".
Relevance to URBANAGE: This paper presents a new framework that combines multi-objective optimization with a graph model that aims to support urban planning and management to enhance age-friendly cities by improving the accessibility and reducing noise and/or air pollution through the installation of urban elements (ramps and escalators, elevators, acoustic and vegetation panels), while considering the overall economic cost of the installation.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Relevance to URBANAGE: It explains all the processes followed to reach the URBANAGE Age Friendly Neighbourhood index, starting with the definition of the indicators.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Ville V. Lehtola, Mila Koeva, Sander Oude Elberink, Paulo Raposo, Juho-Pekka Virtanen, Faridaddin Vahdatikhaki, Simone Borsci (2022). Digital twin of a city: Review of technology serving city needs. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, Volume 114.
Relevance to URBANAGE: This paper on digital twins is highly relevant to URBANAGE as it explores the transformative potential of digital twin technology in urban planning. It addresses critical aspects such as data integration, autonomous updating, and citizen engagement, aligning with URBANAGE's mission to create inclusive and data-driven urban ecosystems. The paper's insights on the convergence of diverse city data for better decision-making directly contribute to URBANAGE's goal of developing age-friendly, sustainable cities.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
O’Hern, S. et al. (2022) ‘Relationships among Bicycle Rider Behaviours, Anger, Aggression, and Crashes in Finland’, Safety, 8(1), p. 18.
Relevance to URBANAGE: Older people rely on active transport modes at an over-proportionate level, as their everyday trips typically are shorter and many decide to give up driving. Besides walking, cycling has come into the focus of an urban sustainability transformation. We had the chance to participate in an internationally standardised survey on cyclist perception; this article is reporting our findings from Finland. This study was carried out in an early stage of the URBANAGE project and was designed to inform the later research; the co-creative process and the co-design of the URBANAGE themes in the focus groups meant a shift away from cycling and towards walking and public transport. Nevertheless, this article is an integral part of the early-stage URBANAGE project.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Willberg, E., Fink, C. and Toivonen, T. (2023) ‘The 15-minute city for all? – Measuring individual and temporal variations in walking accessibility’, Journal of Transport Geography.
Relevance to URBANAGE: In this research article, we investigate how much influence personal factors have on accessibility to everyday services. In particular, we look at how much access to grocery stores is impacted if travel time models assume the walking speed of older people, and in winter conditions. Both assumptions are rooted in findings from the URBANAGE focus groups.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
J-P. Virtanen, T. Ruohomäki, Olli-Eemeli Lappi (2022). Exploring city information models & GIS as data via PowerBI, Smart Cities in Smart Regions Conference Proceedings.
Relevance to URBANAGE: Paper holds significant relevance for URBANAGE as it addresses the increasing complexity of geospatial data in cities. It highlights the potential of Microsoft PowerBI for data analytics and decision-making using 3D city information models, aligning with URBANAGE's data-driven approach to urban planning. The paper's focus on data integration and dashboards can assist URBANAGE in translating diverse data sources into actionable insights for designing age-friendly, inclusive, and sustainable cities.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Tupasela A., Devis Clavijo H., Salokannel M., Fink C., ‘Older People and the Smart City – Developing Inclusive Practices to Protect and Serve Vulnerable Populations’, Internet Policy Review.
Relevance to URBANAGE: Smart City and Digital Urban Twin technology relies heavily on data availability. In this peer-reviewed research article, we discuss how data on vulnerable population groups, in particular older people, can be obtained in an ethical and co-creative way.
PEER REVIEWED PAPER
Delgado-Enales, P. Molina-Costa, E. Osaba, S. Urra-Uriarte and J. Del Ser, "Improving the Urban Accessibility of Older Pedestrians using Multi-objective Optimization," 2022 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), 2022, pp. 1-8, doi: 10.1109/CEC55065.2022.9870432.
Relevance to URBANAGE: This work presents preliminary results of a framework that combines graph modeling and meta-heuristic optimization to inform decision-makers in urban planning when deciding how to regenerate urban spaces taking into account pedestrian accessibility for older people in urban areas.
Invisible in the smart city: Using participatory design methods for age-friendly solutions, Cora van Leeuwen, Juanita Devis Clavijo, Ilse Mariën and An Jacobs on behalf of the Digital Ageing Consortium
Relevance to URBANAGE: The framework described in the paper was partially incorporated into the URBANAGE project to maximize the successful participation of older adults. Steps applied in UR are mentioned (e.g. figure 5).
ARTICLE
STEM Female Leaders – The Way Forward To Reduce The Gender Gap In Stem Fields , Scientix Observatory, September 2022 by Bilgin, A. S., Molina Ascanio, M., Milanovic, I., Kirsch, M., Beernaert, Y., Scicluna Bugeja, D., Noriega, M., Farrugia, J., Evagorou, M., Molina, P., Kapoor, K., Malmberg, B., Trullàs, M., Pedralli, M., Neuberg, C., Koliakou, I., Magid-Podolsky, S., Herrero, B., Christou, E., Niewint-Gori, J., Fabry, E., Quarta, B., Miotti, B., Muscat, M., Vargas, R., Gras-Velázquez, A. (2022),
Relevance to URBANAGE: URBANAGE is mentioned as an example of a project that illustrates how STEM can be combined with IT to improve the life of the elderly.
POLICY BRIEF
Recommendations for responsible adoption of disruptive public sector technologies by the UNLOCK cluster.
Relevance to URBANAGE: It presents the work done in the URBANAGE project and more specifically Case Study no 2.
POLICY BRIEF
Critical review of the need for the public sector to better engage older adults in the design of more inclusive, accessible, age-friendly cities.
Relevance to URBANAGE: It presents the work done in the URBANAGE project.