Crowdsensing for Characterizing Mobility and Its Impact on the Subjective Wellbeing in an Underdeveloped Region

Abstract

Living in an underdeveloped region implies a higher cost of living: access to services, such as school, work, medical care, and groceries, becomes more costly than those who live in regions with better infrastructure. We are interested in studying how mobility affects the cost of living and the subjective wellbeing of residents in underdeveloped regions. We conducted a four-weeks sensing campaign with 14 users in Camino Verde (an underserved region in Tijuana, Mexico). All of the participants used a mobile system that we developed to track their daily mobility. The participants were indicated not to change their daily routine for the study as they carried the tracking device. We analyzed 537 individual routes from different city points and calculated their mobility divergences, while comparing the actual route chosen against the route that was suggested by Google Maps and using this not as the optimal route, but as the baseline. Our results allowed for us to quantify and observe how Camino Verde residents are affected in their mobility in four crucial aspects: geography, time, economy, and safety. A posteriori qualitative analysis, using semi-structured interviews, complemented the quantitative observations and provided insights into the mobility decisions that those people living in underserved regions have to take.