Co-designing urban transport solutions with Southeast Asian young adults

ABSTRACT

The region of Southeast Asia is home to some of the most congested cities. In Malaysia the densely populated area of Kuala Lumpur and its surrounding Klang Valley face the congestion and pollution problems common to cities across Southeast Asia. This study uses the bottom-up approach of concept mapping to explore potential solutions to the transportation problems associated with rapid urbanisation. A sample of young adult Malaysian participants brainstormed ideas and generated 91 proposals for action, which they grouped into the six clusters of Legislation, Infrastructure, Public Transport, Culture & Practices, Education, and Policies. Each proposal was rated for Importance, Feasibility, and Improvement to Traffic Congestion. The study yielded a series of priorities for action by policy-makers including extending existing transport routes to close the ‘last mile gap’, providing safe facilities for non-motorised forms of transport, fair enforcement of existing regulations, and appointing properly qualified professionals to improve infrastructure.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• transport
• bottom-up
• concept mapping
• Southeast Asia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

We hereby declare that this manuscript is the result of our independent creation and the work has been cleared by Sunway University Research Ethics Committee. Except for any quoted contents or where referenced, this manuscript does not contain any research achievements that been published or written by other individuals or groups.

Data availability statement

The data are available on request, subject to all normal ethical safeguards.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by grant number: STR-FCRI-GEN-001-2022 from the Future Cities Research Institute, a partnership between Sunway University and Lancaster University.