Citizenship as a source of knowledge and agent of change
Technicians know the tools. Politicians have objectives. But who truly knows how the mobility of a neighborhood works is the one who uses it every day: the mother who takes her children to school by bicycle, the elderly person who has stopped going out alone because the pedestrian crossings seem unsafe, the delivery person who knows where conflicts accumulate every morning.
Citizen participation in the planning processes of mobility and public space is not a social approval formality: it is an essential source of information that complements objective data and, when done well, improves the quality of decisions and increases the acceptance and effectiveness of the implemented measures.
How we work on participatory processes
From VAIC Mobility, mobility consultancy, we design and facilitate citizen participation processes adapted to the objectives of each project, combining in-person and digital formats to guarantee diversity of voices and improve the representation of groups that are often left out of conventional processes.
The gender perspective is a cross-cutting criterion in the design of all participatory processes: we must also work to ensure that the spaces, times, formats, and languages used do not create barriers to access for any group, and that contributions are collected and analyzed taking into account the diversity of mobility experiences and needs.
Do you want to incorporate citizen participation into your mobility or public space project?
We help you design a rigorous, inclusive participatory process aimed at obtaining useful results for planning.
In-person formats
- Participation workshops: Open sessions for citizens to present diagnoses, gather feedback, and discuss alternatives. We design the dynamics to encourage active participation and prevent the most common voices from monopolizing the space.
- Thematic workshops: Small group work sessions with specific collectives such as shopkeepers, neighborhood associations, educational institutions, active mobility groups to delve into specific aspects of the project and gather detailed proposals.
- Exploratory walks: Walks or bike rides through the area with citizens to identify problematic spots, barriers, and improvement opportunities for the cycling network, pedestrian routes, or public space in situ. Especially effective for gathering perceptions of safety in the real context of daily commutes and for incorporating a gender perspective into the analysis of public space.
- Working tables with key agents: Co-creation sessions with administrations, transport operators, business associations, and social entities to build consensus on projects with multiple stakeholders.
Digital formats
- Online mobility surveys: Digital questionnaires to collect information on travel patterns, evaluation of existing services, and preferences for future alternatives, with segmentation capabilities by demographic profile and area of residence.
- Collaborative Mapping: Participatory mapping tools that allow citizens to geolocate problems, proposals, and assessments directly on a map of the territory. Especially useful for identifying road safety hotspots, barriers for pedestrians and cyclists, and areas with infrastructure or service deficits.
- Digital Participation Platforms: Online channels that allow for asynchronous collection of contributions, extending the reach of the process beyond those who can attend in-person sessions and facilitating the participation of groups with less time availability.
From process to results
Citizen participation is useful if its results are genuinely integrated into project decisions. For this reason, each participatory process includes a synthesis and feedback phase: a document that summarizes the main contributions, explains how they have been incorporated into the project, and justifies, when necessary, why some proposals were not feasible. Closing the loop between participation and decision-making is the condition for citizens to trust the process and participate again.
