Understanding Trust, Transportation, and Accessibility through Ridesharing

Relatively few studies of accessibility and transportation for people with vision impairments have investigated forms of transportation besides public transportation and walking. To develop a more nuanced understanding of this context, we turn to ridesharing, an increasingly used mode of transportation. We interviewed 16 visually-impaired individuals about their active use of ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft. Our findings show that, while people with vision impairments value independence, ridesharing involves building trust across a complex network of stakeholders and technologies. This data is used to start a discussion on how other systems can facilitate trust for people with vision impairments by considering the role of conversation, affordances of system incentives, and increased agency.