We travel twenty kilometres to work, it’s a ten minute drive to the sports club, the arts centre is two villages away. Whoever wants to participate in professional, social and economic life, needs to move from one place to another. For some people, it isn’t always as evident as it seems.
Some people possibly can’t move from A to B without any help, which has a huge impact on their social life. Furthermore, a limited participation in society can result in social and economic consequences for society.
In autonomy research, we aim to facilitate the autonomous movements of people with a decreased mobility. We’re focusing on the whole trip chain (from location A to location B and back) and the use of all possible displacement modes. How do we work? We map the problems people with a decreased mobility experience during their trip. Which difficulties do they face when making a trip? Do they have difficulties executing specific subtasks in particular? Which skills are associated with these (sub)tasks and how do we estimate them objectively? By linking the experienced problems to the necessary skills, we develop achievable and realistic solutions to support autonomous displacement. These solutions meet the specific needs and wishes of the target group and will be discussed with the target group itself and their formal/informal network.
We develop for example education and training to sharpen certain skills required for the displacement. Furthermore, we offer customized assistance during the journey (e.g. via assistive technologies specifically developed for the target group) or we identify limiting environmental factors. Optimizing the (accessible) transport system is also one of the pillars within the autonomy research to increase the participation in society.
Do you have a question or would you like to work with IMOB?
Then please do not hesitate to contact us using the form below or the contact details at the top of the page. We are available every weekday from 9am to 5pm.