UT Institute of Computer Science Graduation Theses Registry

Name

Katarzyna Sowinska

Abstract

This thesis explores the topic of safety in urban mobility. While safety is at the top of the agenda in most European cities nowadays, in some cases, no decent track is kept on how citizens perceive safety. This is a limitation in introducing efficient and well-targeted urban services. To address this issue, a crowdsourced platform was created where users could indicate spots that either feel nice and welcoming or unsafe and scary. Citizens were involved in the platform's design, which indicated reasons for them to feel safe or unsafe in public spaces. Interviews with women were conducted to understand shortcomings regarding safety in public spaces and their significant fears. The platform was deployed in Barcelona, Spain, through promotion in public spaces and online platforms. The data collection took three weeks, resulting in over a hundred points with safe or unsafe tags. The data was later analyzed using additional Barcelona Open Data Portal information. The main focus of the analyses was how infrastructure influences the feeling of safety. This study proves that safety perception is gender-related but depends on previous experiences and familiarity with the surroundings. The correlation between infrastructure and perception was found to be positive. However, this is primarily due to city-specific factors. This shows that it is particularly challenging for cities to target improvements in safety perception through advancements in urban infrastructure, as safety is very individual and subjective. This master's thesis was conducted in collaboration with Your Way Home, a startup that helps women and queer people move safely around cities. The company will continue the analysis, and the platform will be deployed in more cities to confirm and expand the findings.

Graduation Thesis language

English

Graduation Thesis type

Master - Computer Science

Supervisor(s)

Amnir Hadachi, Silvia Casorran

Defence year

2024