Experimental Education of Collaborative Design. The Case of an Inclusive Bus Stop for a Tourist Transportation Hub

The design of transport infrastructures must be developed for social sustainability. Collective transport, interfaces and pedestrian infrastructures must guarantee a combination of quality characteristics, where accessibility according to the universal design approach is prominent. Universal and inclusive design must be consistent with user expectations and needs, and so, the associated process must involve people with disabilities and elderly citizens to understand their difficulties in using the built environment. This is the context of the research project Accessibility for All in Tourism (2017-2019), that focuses on the development of a pilot study of an accessible, smart and sustainable bus stop to be located at a tourist transportation hub. The research was developed considering the perspective of multiple users, professionals in the disability field, and experts who applied technical standards. This co-design process attended to different users' needs. It was a process that required a transdisciplinary approach by the team, integrating students and people with disabilities, walking and observing them and taking into account senior tourists' perceptions through an inquiry survey. This paper describes the collaborative approach that was developed with Civil Engineering students at the Institute of Engineering at the University of Algarve, influencing their work and knowledge. The results indicate that students perceived the concepts of universal design and inclusive design and designed the bus stop for social sustainability. An inclusive society requires input from different users of the built environment and knowledge of their specific needs by engineering designers. Pedestrian infrastructure and interface design demand user-centred approaches and so, processes of co-creation with communities.