Anciaes, Paulo Rui; (2022) Visual aspects of transport: the last frontier for transport and health research? Presented at: 6th International Conference on Transport and Health, Cardiff, UK.

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Transport infrastructures such as roads, car parks, and railways, have a large imprint in urban landscapes. Two perspectives can be considered: 1) View from the infrastructure – what users of motorised modes see when travelling. This view can be enjoyable and relaxing, but also distracting, fatiguing, and disturbing, with possible impacts on road safety and stress. 2) View of the infrastructure - what people see from buildings or when walking around. Visually intrusive infrastructure (e.g., elevated roads) may reduce residential satisfaction and subjective wellbeing. These visual aspects of transport have received little attention as a link between transport and health, when compared with other sensory aspects of the local environment (e.g., noise, air pollution). This study reviews the literature on the health and wellbeing effects of views from/of transport infrastructure, bringing together evidence scattered across many disciplines. METHODS: 1) View from infrastructure: A systematic review was performed, focusing on car drivers, and separating the effects of different types of roadside landscapes and visual elements. 2) View of the infrastructure: A narrative review was performed, given the small number of studies found. RESULTS: 1) View from infrastructure - most evidence relates to the driving task (e.g., distraction, fatigue), not to wider wellbeing aspects (e.g., stress). Monotonous views are consistently linked to fatigue and roadside advertisements linked to distractions. Roadside vegetation has a mix of positive and negative effects on stress and safety behaviour. There is mixed evidence on the effect of other visual elements (e.g., memorials, drones, utility poles, wind turbines) on distraction and safety behaviour. The links between long-term exposure to certain views and car commuter stress have not been studied. 2) View of infrastructure - Studies have found associations between lower subjective wellbeing and views of busy roads and/or car parks, for people at home, in their workplaces, or walking. Views of roads have also been linked with a slower recovery from stress and with reduced restorativeness of green areas. The only study testing the link between views of roads and physical activity did not find significant evidence CONCLUSIONS : Some links have been identified between visual aspects of transport and road safety, stress, and subjective wellbeing. However, the evidence is still incomplete, not covering all the relevant visual characteristics of transport infrastructure and all possible effects on health and wellbeing. This is a gap in the transport and health field, requiring more empirical studies.

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