City Player – A Serious Gaming Tool to Fully Engage Citizens in Sustainable Neighborhoods and Urban Mobility
Project overview
This research project was developed with the understanding that achieving the efficient decarbonization of transportation within a community needs solutions rooted in bottom-up feedback. However, engaging citizens in the planning phases of community projects poses a challenge, and this recognition shaped the direction of this study.
The solution proposed by ‘A Serious Gaming Tool to Fully Engage Citizens in Sustainable Neighborhoods and Urban Mobility’ is to create a gamified digital neighborhood in which citizens can easily play out potential transportation scenarios and register their thoughts, comments and preferences. This goal will be achieved by developing a software application that can be downloaded and run on any PC or MAC.
Key project details
| Principal investigator | Silvano De la Llata, associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University |
Co-principal investigators |
Rilla Khaled, associate professor, Design and Computation Arts, Concordia University; Chun Wang, professor and director, Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering, Concordia University |
Research collaborators |
Christopher Gibbs, senior advisor, Urban Simulation Platform & Gamification, Concordia University; Ursula Eicker, Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Communities and Cities, Concordia University |
| Non-academic partners | Autorité Régionale de Transport Métropolitain, Office de Consultation Publique de Montreal |
| Research Keywords | sustainable neighborhoods, citizen engagement, bottom-up feedback, public transportation, electrification of public transport, changing citizen behaviour, gamification, sustainable transportation, active transport |
| Budget | Cash: $304,000 In-Kind: $50,000 |
Research focus
Decarbonization of transportation
The research aims to contribute to the decarbonization of transport. This will be achieved by ensuring higher adoption of sustainable transportation projects in ARTM/City of Montreal. Additionally, the goal is to educate the public on sustainable travel practices.
Serious game
This research seeks to demonstrate that City Player's gamification approach is more effective in engaging citizens compared to traditional methods. By incorporating Generative AI conversations, we aim to enhance player involvement. City Player serves as a tool to collect citizen trip information, train a machine learning model and simulate local traffic.
Non-academic partners
Thank you to our non-academic partners for your support and trust.
