Passive Accessibility Sensing

A data collection approach that uses smartphone sensors (GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes) to automatically detect potential accessibility barriers in the physical environment without requiring active user input. By analysing patterns in pedestrian movement data — such as reductions in walking speed, route deviations, or changes in acceleration — passive sensing can identify locations where barriers like broken sidewalks, obstacles, or steps may exist. When aggregated across many users, passive sensing data can distinguish genuine accessibility barriers (which slow most pedestrians) from individual variations (like one person stopping to make a phone call). Passive sensing complements active citizen reporting by providing continuous, scalable data collection that does not depend on user motivation to file reports.