MOBILAIR at the 2nd Scientific Conference on Spatial Planning and Development
MOBILAIR was presented at the 2nd Scientific Conference on Spatial Planning and Development, “Resilience of Cities and Regions”, held on 5- 6 October 2026 at KEDEA, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The conference was organised by the Department of Spatial Planning and Development Engineering of AUTh’s School of Engineering. It brought together researchers and practitioners working on spatial and urban planning, regional development and the resilience of cities and regions. Lamprini Adamopoulou, PhD candidate at the Environmental Informatics Research Group (EIRG) of AUTh, presented the paper
“Development of a Green Urban Mobility Application and the Role of Participatory Design”.
The presentation showed how MOBILAIR’s application was shaped together with its future users. Participatory design gives citizens a voice and brings their needs to the forefront. Over one year, two cycles of co-creation workshops brought together postgraduate students of AUTh as user groups. Each cycle started with a questionnaire and an introduction to the project. A design-thinking session followed (empathise, define, ideate, prototype), and a collaborative session in which the groups reviewed the literature and available data, defined key features and developed a business plan. Each cycle closed with the groups presenting their own ideal green mobility app.
The workshops produced 41 feature proposals, covering navigation, air pollutants, gamification, accessibility, economic benefits and extra services. 17 of them were fully or partly integrated into the MOBILAIR app. Among them are personalised air-quality information with a colour-coded AQI, a 48/72-hour forecast, AI-based green routing, daily missions and badges, and an accessible interface with large buttons and high contrast. Six more are planned for future integration, including route rating, information for each pollutant separately, voice assistant and screen-reader support, and reporting of route problems. The limitations were mainly technical, related to data availability or to legislation such as the protection of health data, not a lack of ideas.
The presentation concluded that participatory design worked: it produced complete, feasible designs, directly shaped the application, and raised participants’ awareness of green mobility and air pollution. The next step is to reach more users.
More about the conference:
https://conferencespd2026.plandevel.auth.gr/