Ethical Implications of Designing Infrastructure Around Human Behavior: How Does the Future Accommodate Everyone?

Engineers, during the design phase of an infrastructure project, commonly take into account various considerations about the occupants and users, including (but not limited to): the number of occupants, the predicted demographic (and associated mobility), and any possible future changes. The purpose of this is to ensure a minimum quality of service, making the project easy for occupants to navigate, use, and exit. These considerations generally lead to rule-of-thumb calculations for design purposes [1], ensuring that the project is deemed fit for purpose. However, these calculations are by necessity high-level and fail to take account of specific human behaviors, or they may miss some of the variance in these behaviors.