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DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2024.2.8| LAI: SMART CITY TRANSITION_ INSIGHTOUT 2(2024) 50 Marginalised citizens in the digitalisation era Elaborating on smartphone ownership becoming a basic human right in an increasingly digitalised society, 20 its lack is also exacerbating the social dis­parities brought about by the emergence of urban technologies. While smartphone usage is changing citizens’ daily practices, smartphones had already become the main ICT device for users to interact with transportation systems even before the in­evitable impact of the pandemic. 21 Besides the multimodal travel behaviour which is the key con­cept of MaaS, enabled by SBMS, 9, 22 access to re­al-time information, ticket-purchasing functions and route-planning are almost exclusively offered by mobile apps, 9, 23 let alone some new mobility forms, especially shared mobility services, which are only available and accessible via SBMS. 22 At this point, it becomes necessary to question if a smartphone non-user – whether due to the unaffordability of smartphone ownership, a lack of the skills needed to use a smartphone, or even the rising ethical con­cerns of digital services – would be excluded from the mainstream digitalised transit and thus if de­pendence on smartphones creates another form of social exclusion. 10, 24 Several scholars have already conducted studies regarding the exclusion of smart city transition and conceptualised the most impacted groups under a new term –“digital underclass”. 25 Older adults are often vulnerable in terms of access to technologies; 20 a lower educa­tion level is another factor denying some the skills needed to use these technolo­gies; 22, 26 low-income individuals are at a higher risk of being excluded from mobile apps; 27 disabled individuals face limitations with certain digital interfaces. 28 Even among smartphone users, a disparity is observed be­tween smartphone ownership and the acceptance of urban technologies, implying privacy concerns. 29 Gender as a demographic factor has also been ex­tensively studied, with findings often diverging. While some have argued that women are more vulnerable in the digitalisation era due to their higher privacy concerns and lower ICT knowledge, 30 this observa­tion has not consistently been supported in other studies. 28 Given this debate, this paper centres on gender within the context of smart mobility studies. 20 M. D’cruz and D. Banerjee,“‘An Invisible Human Rights Crisis’: The Marginalization of Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic – an Advocacy Review”, Psychiatry Research , 292(2020), 113369 . 21 N. Thomopoulos, M. Givoni and P. Rietveld,“Introduction: Transport and ICT”, in id.(eds.), ICT for Transport (Cheltenham, 2015), 1–22. 22 S. Groth,“Multimodal Divide: Reproduction of Transport Poverty in Smart Mobility Trends”, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 125(2019), 56–71. 23 C. Pronello and C. Camusso,“User Requirements for the Design of Efficient Mobile Devices to Navigate Through Public Transport Networks”, in N. Thomopoulos, M. Givoni and P. Rietveld(eds.), ICT for Transport (Cheltenham, 2015), 55–93 . 24 A. Sacker et al.,“Health and Social Exclusion in Older Age: Evidence from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study”, Journal of epidemiology and community health , 71/7(2017), 681–690. 25 E. J. Helsper and B. C. Reisdorf,“The Emergence of a‘Digital Underclass’ in Great Britain and Sweden: Changing Reasons for Digital Exclusion”, New Media& Society, 19/8(2017), 1253–1270. 26 E. Hargittai, A. M. Piper and M. R. Morris,“From Internet Access to Internet Skills: Digital Inequality Among Older Adults”, Univer­sal Access in the Information Society, 18/4(2019), 881–890. 27 R. L. Mackett and R. Thoreau,“Transport, Social Exclusion and Health”, Journal of Transport& Health, 2/4(2015), 610–617. 28 J. Goodman-Deane et al.,“Toward Inclusive Digital Mobility Services: A Population Perspective”, Interacting with Computers, 33/4 (2021), 426–441. 29 C. M. T. Lai and A. Cole,“International Perception and Local Pride in Smart City Development: The Case of Hong Kong”, TRaNS: Trans-Regional and-National Studies of Southeast Asia ,(2024), 1–20. 30 M. Zhang, P. Zhao and S. Qiao,“Smartness-Induced Transport Inequality: Privacy Concern, Lacking Knowledge of Smartphone Use and Unequal Access to Transport Information”, Transport Policy, 99(2020), 175–185.