Human-Centric Walkable City
Tampere is the 3rd biggest city in Finland and the most populated inland city in the Nordics. As with many city centres across Europe, the Tampere city centre is facing the threat of decline. The Tampere Sense of Safety survey (2021) revealed that residents felt least safe in the city centre area and in general, they found the place unattractive for pedestrians. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem and the recent energy crisis and inflation hamper the recovery. This Demo aims to revitalise the Tampere city centre to make it walking-friendly in order to bring back people and businesses while encouraging a healthy low-carbon lifestyle of citizens and reducing the city’s carbon footprint. The city government sets out to find solutions through a Walkable City concept, but it is currently lacking an insight into the walkability of the city centre to guide the planning and design of sustainable and inclusive pedestrian concepts. This Demo seeks to support the city by using the latest digital technologies to stimulate citizen participation and enhance decision-making in the urban regeneration process.
Cities around the world are exploring possibilities with emerging technologies such as Digital Twins, extended reality and eventually the Metaverse. The number of cities in the Metaverse is increasing rapidly, and many European cities, including Tampere, are yet to innovate in this sphere. In this Demo, a Digital Twin of the city centre will be developed and building on it, a Metaverse will be created. This real-time digital representation of the city centre will enable, for instance, data-driven analysis of possible walking, cycling and public transport options and routes to support the development of sustainable mobility chains as well as the design of interactive and intuitive accessible guide for the Tampere city centre. The Digital Twin will also be used to simulate the carbon footprint of citizens based on their mobility choices, financial incentives can be provided to reward carbon footprint reduction through walking or cycling.
Metaverse can offer a fun and engaging mechanism for co-creation with citizens as it can bring ideas of urban interventions to life digitally. In this Demo, citizens will be invited to explore the virtual city centre in Metaverse via showcases, where they can create their own digital view of a sustainable and inclusive walkable city. The immersive experiences via the Metaverse and virtual reality can allow citizens to see in a more life-like way what proposed changes in the urban environment will really feel like and as a result, enable them to provide more valuable feedback.
To develop an inclusive walkable city, it is key to understand the needs of a diverse population. This Demo will particularly reach out to the vulnerable communities, including elderly people, those with reduced mobility, persons with disabilities and people struggling with substance use disorder. They will be invited to take part in the co- creation process with an aim to map out their special needs and barriers in the city centres. Their engagement will be realized through collaboration with dedicated organisations who have experience working with the vulnerable population.
In this Demo, the core lies in the human factor. Co-creating the city centre with the community to make the space more accessible, walkable, attractive and safer for everyone is the fundamental target. By doing so, the city creates not just new urban space but more importantly the conditions to encourage citizens to forego the convenience of their cars and enable lasting behavioural change towards more sustainable form of mobility.
