Fostering Accessible Urban Mobility through Smart Mobile Applications

Cities have evolved as a natural environment for cars rather than people. This has limited people's ability to move around, living and interacting with the urban space affecting the experienced quality of life. Clearly, this regards all of us and, in particular, people affected by impairments. One of the main barriers in building services to fill the gap between the urban environment and people living in it is surprisingly represented by the lack of information. Think for instance to Google maps; you can ask for a path between any two destinations and you will receive a response with the shortest path whether you are travelling by car, public transportation or just walking. Yet, there is no path or information available regarding people on a wheelchair or blind. Instead, we discuss in this paper how the vast popularity of sensor-endowed smartphones can be exploited to create unprecedented services able to improve the interaction with the environment, the social inclusion and the quality of life.