Assistive technology in smart cities: A case of street crossing for the visually-impaired

Visually-impaired people encounter a series of challenging tasks in their daily life that are easy to the majority of society. For example, crossing a street, which is a critical task for a pedestrian traveling in a city, actually involves a set of orientation and navigation sub-tasks. The typical form of assistive technology as a solution today for street crossing relies upon an accessible pedestrian signal (APS) usually in the mode of audio signals broadcasted at a cross street. As popular as such APS is, there are various pain points to visually-impaired users who are trying to rely on conventional APS when crossing a street. Given the prevalence of smartphones among the visually-impaired around the world, there is still a vacuum in the literature as to the possibility of providing them, through a smartphone, a safer solution to address those pain points so that users can more confidently walk across a street. In this paper we look at how mobile technology relevantly helps the visually-impaired to cross streets more comfortably and confidently by presenting an action-research-based case of developing and deploying a smart accessible pedestrian signal system (SAPSS) in Taiwan. Originated from an ability-based design principle so as to ensure accessibility, the system integrates hardware, software, and a user-side mobile app into an enhanced solution for the visually-impaired to comfortably cross a street. Two field tests by 19 visually-impaired end users help modify the system and confirm its usability. From the positive feedbacks of these test participants, SAPSS has been formally deployed in three cities in Taiwan. This case study reports the development, the tests, and the deployment of the system in detail and also discusses implications of such a new generation assistive technology in the development of smart cities.