Digital interventions for sustainable mobility behaviour: Gender bias in innovation

For the motivation of more sustainable mobility behaviour, interventions based on behavioural sciences such as psychology and behavioural economics are being used to effectively reduce individual car use. Urban mobility apps offer new opportunities to use digital interventions in a targeted way to promote sustainable mobility behaviour (e.g. bicycling apps) through gamification approaches or motivational methods. We discuss how gender aspects are very rarely considered in the design of such urban mobility apps, both in terms of needs and preferences in mobility behaviour and the effects of digital behavioural interventions, and how these shortcomings leave behind a big group of users. Based on this, we present results from a participatory design with female-only focus groups and conclude by recommendations on how digital interventions for sustainable mobility could be improved to make them more inclusive for female users, but also for people with caretaking roles in families and marginalized groups.