Car-Free Cities Are the Future, Biometrics Reveal
Advanced tools for tracking people’s eye movements and facial expressions can be used to design better places
By Justin B. Hollander, Johanna Riddle, Eliandro Tavares, Jenna Van Holten, Jenna Whitney on June 2, 2023
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Until now it has been impossible to peer into the human mind, but new biometric and machine learning tools are changing this. We can now understand how people experience cities, and these insights can provide a roadmap for creating more just, sustainable and healthy places.
Assuming people approve of these technologies surveilling them, researchers like us can collect real-time facial analysis and eye-movement data using webcams. We can then discern subconscious information communicated by people’s faces when they are engaged with different urban scenes. For example, did they smile? What did they look at first? How long were they engaged with what they saw?
Our research group at Tufts University has conducted a number of facial analysis and eye-tracking studies, and sifting through these data we see that people do not like looking at cars. Conventional urban design and planning practice relies on people’s subjective assessments of places they spend time in through surveys or interviews. This new kind of information and other examinations of how people perceive their environments could revolutionize the way we design urban developments because we believe we can better take into account people’s preferences before we start planning how they will use and navigate them.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/car-free-cities-are-the-future-biometrics-reveal/