Identifying physical barriers through a real-life experience with mobility difficulties city travelers: a go-along interview method

Abstract

Providing physical accessibility to the city centre is crucial in ensuring that everyone has equal access to employment, health care, education and social life. There should be no exclusionary or discriminatory practices that prevent anyone, including disabled people or OKU (from the Malay 'Orang Kurang Upaya') from participating in society. However, evidence from numerous studies shows that OKU has fewer opportunities to participate in built environment activities than non-disabled people due to inaccessible design. Even though OKU's inclusion is linked to having access to the physical space, little effort has been given to exploring OKU's life experience in reaching the city centre. The original research was aimed to investigate the physical accessibility of Kuala Lumpur city centre, as an example of a city in transition, and its effects on OKU's inclusion. However, this paper focuses only on demonstrating a go-along interview as one of the primary data gathering methods employed in the first author's doctoral thesis. The qualitative research design includes twenty go-along interviews with participants with limited mobility in order to learn about their real-life experience travelling to the city centre. With the current access and facilities provided, mobility-impaired travelers, particularly wheelchair users, still require assistance to reach their destination. In general, the mobility-impaired travelers confronted physical obstacles in gaining access to buildings and the internal circulation and services, negotiating barriers at street level and using various transportation modes to reach places. The go-along journeys also demonstrated that OKU faces attitudinal barriers and psycho-emotional disablism in addition tophysical barriers, which may contribute to exclusion.