Johanna Reinhardt
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Urban planning
Biography
Johanna is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. Her research focuses on the social impacts of emerging transportation technologies, with a particular emphasis on children. Before beginning her PhD, she worked in the new mobility sector in Germany across both public and private organisations. She holds a B.A. in European Studies and an M.A. in Environmental Policy and Planning.
Thesis
Cementing another century of the back-seat generation? Investigating the impacts of (autonomous) ride-hailing services for Children's Independent Mobility
(Autonomous) ride-hailing services have recently extended access to teenagers, enabling them to travel independently while remaining remotely supervised by their parents. Marketed to busy parents and busy children, these services challenge long-standing understandings of children’s independent mobility, which have traditionally been associated with unsupervised active travel and/or play and neighbourhood-based movement.
While the mobility industry has identified children as a new user group and expanded services targeted at them, little is known about how these services are reshaping children’s everyday mobility practices. This thesis therefore asks: How do (autonomous) ride-hailing services impact children’s independent mobility (CIM)?
To address this question, the research examines how children’s needs are reflected in policy discourse through an analysis of ride-hailing legalisation reforms in Germany and Victoria, Australia. The thesis finds that children are largely absent from these reforms, despite having distinct and specific user needs.
Building on these findings, the thesis provides a conceptual discussion of how children’s independent mobility is reconfigured through (autonomous) ride-hailing services, foregrounding questions of agency and interdependence. It shows that while ride-hailing can expand children’s mobility, it simultaneously complicates conventional notions of independence and may further reduce children’s active travel, with implications for their social well-being and health.
Publication
Contact
- Email jreinhardt@student.unimelb.edu.au
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