Serious games and transport justice: Examining redistributive issues through classification and dictator games
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Date
2024
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Abstract
Introduction: Serious games can provide an important contribution to grasp how people perceivecertain social issues related to transport and what factors are more relevant for them. The paperexamines the use of serious games as tools to understand how citizens perceive possible inequalities related to urban mobility and what factors they consider relevant for (re)distributingresources among different social groups experiencing such inequalities.Methods: Two serious games, a classification game and a dictator game, are applied in Santiago deChile, a city characterised by significant inequalities that affect also transport. The games aretested in seven focus groups involving 33 participants, arranged according to their socioeconomicconditions. In the games, participants have to rank six fictional characters and distribute amongthem resources to finance their mobility needs.Results: Participants tend to privilege socioeconomic variables such as income, rather thanconsidering other significant individual features or the actual mobility needs of different characters. The resources are distributed focusing on the characters perceived as disadvantaged. Suchperception of mobility-related inequalities does not show significant differences between participants from different social backgrounds.Conclusions: Serious games can be helpful to anticipate how the general public may perceivecontroversial policy measures and to plan measures to avoid discontent, providing relevant elements to enhance the social acceptability of certain transport policy decisions. Their relevance issignificant in the face of pressing societal issues, also in relation to health, although theirimplementation can be quite time- and money-consuming.
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Serious game, Inequality, Transport justice, Redistributive policy