eXtended Reality for Migrant Driver Behaviour and Integration

Project Lead

Team Members

Irum Sanaullah, Yoassry Elzohairy

Sub-Theme: Cyber-Physical Service Infrastructure

This sub-theme explores how cyber-physical infrastructure influences migrant accessibility, opportunity, and integration outcomes. It examines the interplay between physical and social infrastructures, their impact on migrant support, and the role of infrastructure in shaping migration patterns.

Objective

The existing infrastructure and land use patterns in Canada often require newcomers to rapidly adapt car-dependency. For them, it entails passing the provincial driving tests, adopting to often new driving conditions, and acquiring the necessary driving experience. Road safety is also a critical public health and infrastructure issue in Canada, where motor-vehicle accidents remain a leading cause of injury and death.

Despite extensive research on driving behaviour, there is a limited focus on the specific role and experiences of migrant drivers in contributing to or being affected by road accidents. In the context of migrant integration and infrastructure use, this project aims to address that gap, in collaborations with the Road Safety Research Office, Ministry of Transportation, Ontario (MTO).

Research Questions

What is the impact of different driving conditions on migrant driver behaviour?
What factors contribute to differences in driving behaviour and road safety outcomes between immigrant and non-immigrant drivers?
How can migrants be supported better with a more inclusive use of the road infrastructure?

Methodology

To answer the outlined research questions, with the help of Ministry of Transportation, the project will recruit drivers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), who learned to drive in Canada as well as migrant drivers with different years of driving experience in Canada.

The project itself is divided into four sub-projects: Revealed Driver Behaviour, eXtended Reality (XR) based Driving Study, Empirical Analysis of Driver Behaviour, Reporting and Policy Insights Development.