SAI: Modeling Equitable and Accessible Public Spaces

加强美国基础设施（SAI）是美国国家科学基金会的一个项目，旨在促进以人为本的基础研究和潜在的变革性研究，以加强美国的基础设施。有效的基础设施为社会经济活力和广泛的生活质量改善提供了坚实的基础。强大、可靠和有效的基础设施刺激私营部门的创新，发展经济，创造就业机会，使公共部门提供的服务更有效率，加强社区，促进机会平等，保护自然环境，加强国家安全，并推动美国的领导地位。为了实现这些目标，需要来自科学和工程学科的专业知识。SAI侧重于人类推理和决策、治理以及社会和文化过程的知识如何使有效的基础设施的建设和维护能够改善生活和社会，并以技术和工程的进步为基础。为了使美国的公共交通枢纽更方便、更容易使用，已经花费（重新）设计了大量资源，但人们仍然发现许多交通枢纽难以导航。对于有行动能力、感觉或认知障碍的四分之一的美国人来说尤其如此。部分困难源于未能理解社会因素如何影响具有不同能力的人在不同环境中相互作用的方式。该项目使用虚拟现实（VR）模拟公共交通枢纽，研究有残疾或暂时有障碍的人如何在物理物体和其他人周围导航。它还考虑了非残疾人如何在残疾人或障碍人群中穿行，以及公告和标志如何改变不同人群在交通枢纽的出行方式。这些发现被用于创建更真实的计算机模型，以了解人们如何在拥挤的空间中穿行，并测试哪些因素使公共空间更高效、更可用。公共交通枢纽是主要焦点，因为改善公共交通的可用性扩大了所有美国人可以获得的教育、社会、健康和职业机会。提高公共交通枢纽的可用性也有助于减少美国对私人交通的依赖。这个项目由三个相互关联的部分组成。一种是使用虚拟现实（VR）来探索具有不同移动性和感知能力的人的导航选择。第二种是利用计算机模拟导航选择和不同人群的流动。第三部分开发了评估（重新）设计真实公共空间的评估指标，考虑到人们的可变性和他们的导航选择。一系列关于人类寻路的实验使用VR将人类参与者嵌入模拟的公共交通枢纽。与传统的导航研究不同，这些实验关注的是人类的寻路如何受到其他人的影响。虚拟现实实验研究了人们如何在由不同移动性的模拟人组成的环境中导航。他们还会考虑人们在对他们导航特定空间、识别潜在路线或感知指令的能力产生负面影响的情况下的反应。虚拟现实实验还研究了那些使用移动辅助设备的人如何在充满虚拟人物的虚拟环境中导航。该项目旨在为每个人增加公共空间和交通枢纽的可用性，从而扩大所有人的教育、社交、健康和职业机会。该奖项由社会、行为和经济科学理事会（SBE）和数学和物理科学理事会支持。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) is an NSF Program seeking to stimulate human-centered fundamental and potentially transformative research that strengthens America’s infrastructure. Effective infrastructure provides a strong foundation for socioeconomic vitality and broad quality of life improvement. Strong, reliable, and effective infrastructure spurs private-sector innovation, grows the economy, creates jobs, makes public-sector service provision more efficient, strengthens communities, promotes equal opportunity, protects the natural environment, enhances national security, and fuels American leadership. To achieve these goals requires expertise from across the science and engineering disciplines. SAI focuses on how knowledge of human reasoning and decision-making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering.Substantial resources have been spent (re)designing America’s public transportation hubs to make them more accessible and easier to use, but people still find many transportation hubs hard to navigate. This is especially true for the one in four Americans who have mobility, sensory or cognitive impairments. Part of the difficulty stems from the failure to understand how social factors affect the way people with differing abilities interact with one another as they navigate different environments. Using virtual reality (VR) simulations of public transportation hubs, this project examines how people who have impairments or are temporarily encumbered navigate around physical objects and other people. It also considers how nondisabled people navigate around people who are disabled or encumbered, and how announcements and signs change the way diverse people travel through transportation hubs. These findings are used to create more realistic computer models of how people navigate crowded spaces, and to test what factors make public spaces more efficient and usable. Public transportation hubs are the primary focus because improving the usability of public transportation expands the educational, social, health and occupational opportunities that are available to all Americans. Improving the usability of public transportation hubs also helps to decrease America’s reliance on private transportation.This project is organized around three interlocking parts. One uses virtual reality (VR) to explore the navigational choices of people who have varying mobility and perceptual abilities. A second uses computational simulations of the navigational choices and flow of diverse people. The third part develops evaluation metrics for assessing the (re)design of real public spaces that take into consideration the variability in people and their navigational choices. A series of experiments on human wayfinding uses VR to embed human participants in simulated public transportation hubs. Unlike traditional navigation studies, these experiments focus on how human wayfinding is affected by the presence of other people. The VR experiments examine how people navigate environments that are populated by simulated others with varying mobility. They also consider how people respond when placed in situations that negatively impact their ability to navigate certain spaces, identify potential routes, or perceive instructions. The VR experiments also examine how those who use mobility aids navigate virtual environments that are populated with virtual people. This project aims to increase the usability of public spaces and transportation hubs for everyone, regardless of ability, thereby expanding educational, social, health and occupational opportunities for all.This award is supported by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.