Psychological resilience and way finding behavior in barrier-free transit guidance systems: A mixed-methods study of Bangkok's pink line

This mixed-methods study examines the case of Bangkok’s Pink Line to understand the link between psychological resilience and wayfinding in barrier-free transit systems. The study collects quantitative data through interviews, think-aloud protocols, and observational studies to assess how different users such as people with physical and sensory impairments, the elderly, caregivers, and commuters interact with the transit system and its design elements. The results demonstrate that psychological accessibility factors shape wayfinding performance more than the removal of physical barriers. Three environmental factors were found to be particularly relevant: sensory channel information redundancy, decisional point unambiguity, and spatial continuity. The study shows that psychological resilience influences the effect of environmental design on navigation performance—Differently across various user groups. These findings enrich theories of environmental psychology and inform transit design by illustrating the utility of barrier-free guidance systems that integrate spatial and psychological access considerations to improve urban mobility for diverse populations in expanding metropolitan regions.