Rethinking Accessibility through an Embodied, Health-Centered Approach

Objective

The REACH project fundamentally rethinks urban accessibility by introducing Urban Ergonomics, a novel framework that centres the fit between the human body and urban space in spatial analysis. Moving beyond generic distance or time conventions, REACH develops and validates the Metabolic Equivalent of Distance, a metric that translates individual physiological effort into a personalized measure for understanding active mobility and urban reachability levels. The project will leverage a careful selection of appropriate datasets from reputable studies, with a specific focus on underrepresented groups. This will enable rigorous testing of the hypotheses that effort-based accessibility zones more accurately delineate observed activity spaces and possess greater explanatory power in linking environmental exposures to health outcomes. The implementation of the project requires a cross-disciplinary methodological bridge, which is secured by explicit collaborations with experts from diverse fields. Overall, by bridging urban geography with physiology, REACH will deliver a new method and toolset to create more equitable, inclusive, and health-promoting cities.