Designing Inclusive Low Carbon Journeys
Ensuring that everyone can get out and about in a low carbon future
There’s a big focus on lowering emissions from vehicles right now. This is important but our journeys are so much more than the transport - what will a low carbon journey in the future look like?
What do we want and how do we ensure that our plans for all aspects of our journeys are inclusive? What will an inclusive low carbon journey in the future look like?
We need a vision for low carbon journeys that will enable everyone to take climate-friendly trips - a vision that we build together, something we can all work towards and use to design different aspects of our journeys in context.
Inclusive Low Carbon Journeys is a series of events for disabled people that explores plans and designs for a low carbon world and applies real experiences of exclusion to imagine more inclusive versions of plans for the future.
By using our imagination to tell stories, we are providing a vision that designers, manufacturers, policy makers, inventors and others can use to ensure that we that we don’t create low-emission services and environments that continue to disadvantage and disable people.
“Accessible Transport” often focuses on physical accessibility - infrastructure, ramps and surfaces. This is important but it’s only part of the story and transport is only part of our journey. Our work invites people to think about each step of an entire journey including the experiences, products, services and environments before, between and after the transport. This is why we talk about Inclusive Journeys.
And as we respond to the climate emergency, many aspects of our journeys will be redesigned to lower their energy use and emissions - vehicles, of course, but also other experiences, products, services and environments that we encounter along the way.
Transport is only part of our journeys today and low carbon transport will only be part of getting out and about in the future.
Changing how we travel is one of the most effective climate-positive actions we can take so we need to ensure that everyone has the choice to change. If we simply focus on replacing polluting vehicles with cleaner versions we won't fix all the different barriers and inequalities that we already know are built into our journeys. If we can’t understand the timetable or walk safely to the bus stop or find a suitable toilet at the station, we probably won’t choose to use the bus ... even if it is electric.
So, how do we ensure that we redesign low carbon experiences, products, services and environments, that work for everyone?
By creating a vision of what inclusive low carbon journeys could and should look like - learning about plans and designs for a low carbon world and applying our experiences of exclusion to them, imagining more inclusive and sustainable future.
We’re doing this by working with disabled people:
learning about plans for low carbon products, services and environments throughout a journey
viewing these plans using our own expertise and experience of exclusion.
imagining and develop ideas for future products, services and environments that are low carbon and inclusive
creating stories that visualise entire inclusive low carbon journeys (including but not exclusively focussing on low carbon transport)
sharing these stories with policy makers, manufacturers, inventors, designers, disability activists, climate activists…
continuing to learn and develop our stories with new inputs and imagining.
We developed this process in 2021 with our weekly Future Journeys group and worked with design leaders Snook along with accessibility consultants Hussein Patwa and Diogo Martins to develop our process and present our first story at the Design Council’s Design for Planet event.
In May 2022 we ran our first course, Designing for Inclusion and Sustainability supporting designers to use explore our process.
This is the story we created together.
Catching the electric bus
It’s November 2026 and strangely mild for the time of year...
(Image: drawing of a hand holding a phone showing an alert “Bin collection day on Lily Street. Potential pavement obstruction” and small image of a wheelie bin!)
Jenny’s up early as she has to take a trip across town today for an appointment and she has to be on time. Travel has always been a challenge for Jenny - but she’s keen to try out new ideas that can keep her independence and she also wants to take climate positive action where she can.
One of the first things she does is check her Daily Assistant - it reminds her what time her appointment is, how long she has before leaving and also that there may be some obstructions out there today as it’s recycling bin collection day in her area. Luckily her route has the new recycling system being tested out so the paths should be clearer. Jenny used her Assistant weeks ago to plan today’s route and it’s telling her that the buses and trains are all running smoothly - and the pavements around the hospital are all clear too - no roadworks to make her late like last time.
She feels a little more optimistic. The Assistant will guide her all the way and keep her up to date with any changes. This is so much better than a few years ago when you had no idea what was ahead of you. Her neighbour’s trying out the new e-bike guidance system which basically takes you to where you want to go…. but Jenny isn’t quite ready for that yet.
(Image: drawing of person cutting a hedge overgrown on a pavement - nearby is a wooden box containing cuttings with a sign 'communal compost’)
Jenny’s route to the bus stop is nice and clear today. The new recycling scheme is working well - instead of large bins, local residents simply throw their recycling into shutes built into the side of local buildings. Nothing to get in the way on the pavement.
There’s also a micro-volunteering scheme just starting up to keep the pavements clear of plants and branches. Jenny’s a real fan of the street rewilding movement but pavements quickly become overgrown and it’s hard to get around sometimes. This new scheme encourages neighbours to join in and add to the communal compost which Jenny then uses on her own garden.
The electric cars along the route all use these new ‘invisible’ chargers now so no more leads to trip Jenny up - like that incident two years ago. She’s not sure how it works but the main thing is that she doesn't have to worry about it any more - she doesn’t have to worry about cars parking on the pavement either, now that they’ve stopped that happening.
(Image: drawing showing a yellow bus stop with plants and flowers behind it and a cat walking towards it! A screen inside says “touch screen for help and information - press button for contact with drivers”)
As Jenny arrives at the bus stop she locks up her e-bike that she has been pushing. She can safely leave it and charge it up in the shelter - ready to use it to get home later when she knows she’ll be really tired. She pulls out her phone and her Assistant tells her she has 7 minutes until her bus arrives. These new bus shelters have great wifi so the Assistant always works these days. Someone mentioned that the bus stops were all solar powered these days.
Her phone does a lot of the work for her but some of her fellow passengers are using the screen in the bus stop to ask for help and contact the bus driver to let them know that they want to get on. Jenny’s phone buzzes and she has a message from the bus driver to say that the audio announcements have stopped working on her bus so she might want to consider getting the next bus which is three minutes behind - it won’t make her late. These new alerts are so helpful - having announcements on the bus to tell Jenny her next stop can make or break a journey for her.
So Jenny now has 10 minutes to wait. Unfortunately the seats in the new bus shelters could be better. They are still cold metal and uncomfortable - if they had asked about seating she would have had some good ideas for them - wooden seats at different heights would be perfect - better for the environment and more inclusive.
As Jenny’s bus is approaching, a reassuring chime plays in the shelter and Jenny’s phone buzzes again - these electric buses are lovely and quiet so you need a reminder that they are actually arriving! A fellow passenger who uses a wheelchair is ready in the priority boarding bay where the driver always lowers the ramp. It’s funny, Jenny still calls them the ‘driver’ but in fact the bus drives itself now - which means that it’s actually a travel assistant that greets you at the door. They help you to your seat and answer questions…
(Image: drawing of the inside of the bus. In the background a screen displays ‘Bus stopping … next stop…’ and there’s an information screen, a stop button and charging point on the back of each of the two seats in the foreground.)
As Jenny gets on the bus she heads for her favorite seat with the extra room. Every seat has an information screen now so that she can easily keep track of where she is. And they are comfortable! These new electric buses are much smoother (and they’ve improved the roads) and the seats are more supportive. They don’t rattle any more - the old buses were noisy and vibrated so she always felt exhausted at the end of a trip.
One of the best things is that there are stop buttons everywhere - it was always an anxious moment finding them in time before. Now there’s one right in front of her no matter where she sits. And they’re right next to the charging points - Jenny had seen people charging medical equipment, wheelchairs and pushchairs as well as phones. Apparently these extra services are all solar powered too.
(Image: drawing of a wide entrance with a sign above saying toilets. To the side we see a plant and a sign that says ‘Free Open 24 hours’)
Jenny had planned her journey with a rest stop at the bus station - Doing the whole journey without stopping would be an ordeal. The station had a new waiting area that had been designed with the local communities. It had comfortable, wooden seating with lots of options. Spaces for wheelchairs, seats at different heights and with different types of support - all of them designed so that people could easily stand up from sitting - Jenny remembered those long rows of inflexible plastic seats that were so uncomfortable.
Her assistant told her where she had to be for her next bus in 20 minutes so she had time for rest and an opportunity to charge her phone - but first she would head to the toilets. Her Assistant tells her that the building knows she is there. The energy saving lights in the toilet that use movement sensors will deactivate for a while so that she won’t be plunged into darkness like a few years ago - that was not a pleasant experience!
Most importantly the toilets are free and open all the time now which has made such a difference. In the past, when her Assistant hadn’t been able to find enough toilets that were open along her route, Jenny had simply chosen not to go out. Some of these new changes mean that she can travel independently and join in with some of the initiatives that allow people to travel with the planet in mind.
So, that’s our first glimpse of a more inclusive future low carbon journey.
Huge thanks to our Thursday afternoon Future Journeys group who talked, listened, collaborated, shared, laughed, imagined and told stories. This process is only possible because people gave their time and energy to help us shape it. You can join our discussions by signing up here.
And big thanks of course to Kat for our lovely story illustrations.
What’s next?
This is a prototype which just scratches the surface. But it’s the first-of-a-kind we think - the first attempt to describe multiple experiences of taking a future journey that includes more inclusive low carbon solutions. There’s so much more we need to do, more insights and ideas to discover, more experiences, environments, services and vehicles to consider.
We’re holding more events, learning from designers, manufacturers, policy makers and inventors, imagining a more inclusive version of the future, adding to this story and creating others.
The first of these will look at the future of inclusive and sustainable public toilets.
Sign up for our newsletter to keep in touch.