Mobility researches in the project Subjective Safety & Urban Space: Mobility Decisions of Young People (SuSi) at Hochschule RheinMain (HSRM) are investigating how to use social and infrastructural factors in mobility management to improve the subjective sense of safety of road users. By researching the relevant influencing factors the project intends to help develop a gender-sensitive transport policy that makes mobility more just and accessible for all genders.

Given the global urbanization trends, mobility researchers have been focusing their work more and more on mobility behavior in urban areas. Researchers are particularly interested in the mobility behavior of young people, as their experiences and their associated subjective feeling of safety have a long-term impact on their choice of means of transport. The SuSi project is working on how to define subjective safety, how to make it visible and how infrastructural and social factors can influence it. The researchers of the Mobility Management department at HSRM are being funded by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and the Arts (HMWK) with €24,600 for the first project phase in 2024.

Safety preference influences decisions on means of transport 

“It can be assumed that young people’s mobility behavior is influenced by their personal perception of safety. Risks are avoided, we prefer feeling safe,” 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, the high cost of using local public transport or the dangers of road traffic. However, social factors also have a potential impact, including sex and gender, age, native language and various physical and mental abilities. Taken together, these factors of social identity have an essential impact on how young people move in public spaces, which means of transport they use and how they behave in interaction with other road users.

The aim of the SuSi research project is to find out what subjective safety means for young people, how the subjective perception of safety is influenced by social and infrastructural factors and how it can be made visible. Based on the data, the researchers are developing scenarios to increase subjective safety and derive recommendations for gender mainstreaming and gender planning strategies, that is, taking into account the needs of diverse user groups. By researching the relevant influencing factors the project intends to help develop a gender-sensitive transport policy that makes mobility more just and accessible for all genders.