Transport and Older People: Integrating Transport Planning Tools with User Needs
A collaborative research project between Leeds University and Leeds Metropolitan University
Project Description
The purpose of this project is to bring together transport and public health research in order to demonstrate how the involvement of older people can help improve currently available tools for transport planning. The study is unique in that it brings together public health and transport engineering with older people to consider how services can be more responsive to older people’s transport needs. The project has five main objectives:
The paragraph above raises several important research questions:
1. To investigate how accessibility problems impact on older people’s independence
2. To determine the extent to which currently available data sources and modelling tools reflect older people’s stated accessibility needs
3. To understand how the gap between expected and perceived accessibility problems varies across different categories of older people?
4. To pilot techniques that could be applied to provide a more robust measure of accessibility for older people.
5. To build new research capacity across disciplines to develop a national focus on the interactions between ageing and transport planning.
The project has, at its core, the identification of user needs of older people. This will be done through discussion with older people and the groups which are involved in providing both the services for them and the transport that connects them to these services. There will be substantial shared understanding of issues developed through this process which will enhance service provision practice both in terms of identifying facilities that older people would like to access and in raising awareness of barriers to access and methods to overcome these barriers. The involvement of older people directly in the research will also engender a feeling of engagement amongst the participants.
News
This project concluded in February 2007 and
the Final Report is now available to download here.
The key findings were:
Three overriding factors influence older people’s ability to get around: physical
ability, individual characteristics and the transport environment. Whilst
some older people viewed their decreased ability to get around with a degree
of acceptance or fatalism, clear evidence of frustration also emerged. The
study also identified three typographies regarding how involved individuals
are in transport provision: the Resigned Acceptors, the Frustrated Acceptors
and the Involved. Those who are most engaged with the system, the “Involved”,
have greater control over influencing change. The “Resigned acceptors” and
“Frustrated acceptors” appear most at risk in suffering from the current deficiencies
of the service and are least well placed to challenge the current position.
In mainstream transport planning, travel is treated as a ‘derived demand’
– something you only do to take part in an activity and it is the activity,
not the travel, which is of value to the traveller. This study clearly found
that for older people the travel itself and the feeling of freedom and purpose
it engendered were often more important than the actual destination. Shopping
was more than just buying food or clothes. Instead it was an experience in
itself as it offered a reason to go out and interact with others. A difference
in aspiration in terms of activities emerged however, with some older people
planning extensive journeys while others were content with being able to access
their local environment. Specific destinations that were important to reach
were identified. These included hospitals, doctors, churches, friends’ houses,
places of worship, day centres and parks.
Older people’s ability to get out and about was affected by environmental,
social and psychological factors. These included: a combination of bus driver
behaviour, bus design and the positioning of bus stops; the lack of formal
crossings or the crossings not situated in the correct places; the walking
surface or obstacles on the pavement; personal safety concerns; experiences
of taxi journeys; the prospect of giving up driving; the access bus. Travelling
on buses was seen as especially hazardous. These are all crucial issues for
older people as one bad experience can be enough to put that person off travelling
that way again for life. In this context, driver training for bus drivers
is critical.
Our assisted walk research highlighted the many problems faced by older people
in walking round local neighbourhoods. Some of the issues relate to ‘other
uses’ of the pavement from parking cars to leaving hedge trimmings lying around
(although trimming hedges was by no means common). These could largely be
dealt with through neighbourhood wardens and greater community responsibility.
There are a series of other infrastructure related issues which make walking
around a potential hazardous task, particularly in relation to crossing roads.
Our discussions with a lead local authority engineer highlighted a some key
issues which appear likely to marginalise the treatment of older people through
the planning process:
1. There are no design guidelines specific to cater for older people. The
system relies on engineers making a reasoned assessment of the needs of older
people yet no specific training is available and improvements to this would
be welcomed. We observed that fully mobile pedestrians often speed up during
some part of an informal road crossing if a vehicle appears. This is sometimes
not possible for older people and can create frightening situations.
2. There are more improvements to the network required than can be funded.
The system prioritises major accident black spots which may be sensible. It
does however marginalise areas where people do not walk because it is deemed
too unsafe. Any citizen can request an investigation of a street on safety
grounds. However, as discussed above, the resigned acceptors are less likely
to do so which may create imbalances in the system. There are not the resources
for staffing or funding the works for a more proactive approach.
Many of the interventions that are vital for older people (e.g. central reserves)
would benefit all walkers and are typically low cost solutions.
New tools have been developed to try and assess how well connected communities
are to key facilities, a process known as accessibility planning. Part of
this approach uses GIS mapping techniques to assess access problems. On the
basis of our interview work and some experiments to improve the settings for
the software programme we feel this approach has limited value in an urban
context and a community-led dialogue will be more effective in identifying
problems. There is a huge variability in the physical mobility of older people
which further compounds any generic assessments and the destination sets of
interest are more diffuse than is currently the mainstream focus of accessibility
planning.
Greater thought should be given to the ramifications of incentive and regulation
structures. The impacts of safety targets have already been highlighted. We
are concerned that punctuality targets for public transport may contribute
to the behaviour of bus drivers in setting off before people are seated and
in aggressive driving. Other regulations (such as not parking at or near bus
stops) are not sufficiently enforced. This can defeat the benefits gained
from having a low floor bus fleet. Route quality is not just about the infrastructure
provided but how it is used.
The decision-making environment is changing with greater fragmentation of
responsibilities for delivery and management of transport services, roadworks
etc. than has been the case for much of the current generation of older people’s
lives. Many are not aware of these changes and are disconnected from the processes
which they need to understand to influence change. Local authorities could
overcome some of these difficulties through communication with community groups
as well as their more general publicity campaigns. We could not accept the
arguments put to us that informing bus users about proposed service changes
for their bus routes on board the bus was now too difficult due to the ways
in which buses run different routes. Given the levels of public subsidy which
go to support concessionary travel greater accountability and customer service
must be levered from the system.
Dialogue with older people is critical to doing things better. We heard examples
of problems with bus design, bus stop design, pavement and crossing design.
Where we were able to follow these up it seems that older people’s needs were
only partly considered. This seems like an easy and relatively cheap process
change that could be implemented before local authorities commission new infrastructure
or companies purchase new vehicles or other products. Many older people would
welcome the chance to be more involved although they also accept that theirs
is just one voice amongst many in reaching decisions.
This study confirmed the widely held belief that older people, where physically
possible, want to remain part of the mainstream transport system both through
driving or public transport. Independence is critical to well being and transport
is critical to independent living. There are a range of further support measures
including community transport and electric scooters which can help overcome
problems faced by frailer travellers although these were not the main focus
of this study. We see many areas for improvement if older people are to be
treated as an important part of mainstream transport planning:
- Consideration of older people in the planning, design and implementation of projects and services
- Awareness of the different needs and capabilities of older people
- Focussed training for professionals on the different needs of the older population
- Engagement and consultation with older people to understand their needs and how these relate to the whole picture
We strongly advocate the local authorities consider how their processes form part of this CAFE culture.
If you would like to get involved in the project then please contact Greg Marsden.
Added - 09/05/07
Outputs
View the latest project outputs
Funding Organisation
The research is funded by SPARC - Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity - a jointly funded EPSRC and BBSRC initiative
Project Duration
January 2006 to October 2006
Project Team
Dr Greg Marsden - Institute for Transport Studies
Dr Ann Jopson - Institute for Transport Studies
Dr Mima Cattan - Centre for Health Promotion Research, Leeds Metropolitan University
Contact Us
Jenny Woodward - Centre for Health Promotion Research, Leeds Metropolitan University