Serious games and transport justice: Examining redistributive issues through classification and dictator games

Serious games can provide an important contribution to grasp how people perceive certain social issues related to transport and what factors are more relevant for them. The paper examines the use of serious games as tools to understand how citizens perceive possible inequalities related to urban mobility and what factors they consider relevant for (re)distributing resources among different social groups experiencing such inequalities. Two serious games, a classification game and a dictator game, are applied in Santiago de Chile, a city characterised by significant inequalities that affect also transport. The games are tested in seven focus groups involving 33 participants, arranged according to their socioeconomic conditions. In the games, participants have to rank six fictional characters and distribute among them resources to finance their mobility needs. Participants tend to privilege socioeconomic variables such as income, rather than considering other significant individual features or the actual mobility needs of different characters. The resources are distributed focusing on the characters perceived as disadvantaged. Such perception of mobility-related inequalities does not show significant differences between participants from different social backgrounds. Serious games can be helpful to anticipate how the general public may perceive controversial policy measures and to plan measures to avoid discontent, providing relevant elements to enhance the social acceptability of certain transport policy decisions. Their relevance is significant in the face of pressing societal issues, also in relation to health, although their implementation can be quite time- and money-consuming. •Two serious games applied to redistributive transport issues in an unequal city.•Participants classify six fictional characters and redistribute resources among them.•Participants consider income as the main element determining transport disadvantage.•Participants tend to prioritise potential rather than actual mobility needs.•Thanks to the reference to fictional characters, participants show more open, empathic postures.