Study on the mobility needs of elderly people for the European Metropolitan Transport Authorities

1. Study on the mobility needs of elderly people for the European Metropolitan Transport Authorities Validation Workshop Frankfurt (Main) 13 October 2006 Siegfried Rupprecht, Matthias Fiedler

2. Overview • Aims of the Validation Workshop • Background: Changing Demography and Mobility Behaviour • Challenges for passengers and PT sector • Preliminary results from the field work • Preliminary recommendations and conclusions • Preview to the final report

3. Aims of the Validation Workshop

4. Aims of the Validation Workshop • Discussion and weighting of the preliminary results • Setting priorities for the Final Report Main Questions: • What are the expectations and priorities for the Final Report? • Are there gaps to be addressed?

5. Background: Demography and Mobility Behaviour

6. Background: Shifts in population balance • Impacts on Society, Economy and Transport • Increasing share of single households

7. Background: Still mobile, but shorter trips • Senior citizens are still mobile (approx.3 trips/day) • Shorter trips • Environment of the own home becomes more important

8. Background: Shift from car to walking and PT • Walking and PT increases, car use decreases with age • Considerable differences within senior group: Age(ing) has to be seen as a process rather than a stage

9. Background: Trips are not only leisure related! • Leisure and Shopping related trips have more weight • Also other activities (e.g. social engagement, support of family/friends) become more relevant

10. Background: Aged single women are most loyal PT customers • High dependency on gender, license holdership and household status • High-aged single women are loyal PT costumers, while couples and single men keep on using private car even they got difficulties

11. Challenges and Trends

12. Challenges: Constraints increase with age

13. Challenges: Not only physical barriers • Diminished motor, sensory and cognitive abilities • Senior people are slower and more insecure in their movements • Many have a hearing or vision loss • Orientation or cognitive problems can also form a barrier • Travelling is in general more exhausting to seniors than to young people • Social and psychological barriers • Anonymity: approachable staff in vehicles and at major stops • Fears: Security and safety, loss of control/orientation • More sensitive towards quality and cleanliness • Other people are often perceived as inconsiderate • Lack of self-confidence: More likely to give in when problems occur • Financial barriers depend much on the particular region

14. Trends: Increasing license holdership • Increasing number of driving licence holders, particularly among elderly women Source: MiD 2004 (Data for Germany2002)

15. Trends: The car generation is retiring • Senior people in the future will have better health, and higher levels of education • The share of driving license holders will increase, also more seniors will dispose of a private car • Driving a car is strongly related to quality of life for most seniors • They are more demanding and PT has a negative image among them • Ageing in suburbia: Many seniors will live in housing areas of lower density and outside the city centres

16. Challenges (summary) • Public Transport can play an important role ensuring independency and participation in social life • But many of tomorrow’s seniors will not be familiar with public transport and prefer ‘driving to the grave’ • Issues lie on the technical but even more on the societal/psychological side • Trip chain perspective: Sum of problems rather important than particular barriers • The subjective perception of the seniors is crucial • This calls both for higher levels and new forms of service and customer attendance

17. Preliminary Results from the Fieldwork

18. Work accomplished (I) • Set-up of shared workspace • Questionnaire campaign: 33 questionnaires received, of which 30 were suitable for analysis (10 planned) • Site visits in 6 agglomerations (4 planned): Birmingham (UK), Lille (France), Göteborg (Sweden), Manchester (UK), Rhine-Ruhr Area (Germany), Salzburg (Austria) • One Interview with geriatric medical • Further interviews with user organisation and ‘SIZE’ project (if feasible)

19. Survey cities & agglomerations

20. Perception of issues (Q 3)

21. Implementation status (Q4)

22. Assessment of implemented measures (Q6)

23. Main barriers to measures (Q7) • Lack of financial and human resources • Impacts not always measurable • Difficulty to specify needs of seniors • Acceptance among users and staff, difficulty to change peoples’ habits • Senior passengers are low on the agenda of decision makers • Complex organisational structures (in-house and external) • Low knowledge about seniors’ needs on local level, high efforts necessary to change this • Improvements take time

24. Preliminary recommendations and conclusions

25. Recommendations (I) • Physical accessibility: • Accessible vehicles and stops • Short walking distance to next stop • Environment of stops (e.g. busy roads to cross on the way to the next stop) • Information: • Visual and acoustic information (pre-trip and on-trip) • Seniors often prefer ‘traditional ways’ of information: Direct contact to staff, telephone, teletext • Equipment: • Seating benches and toilets are highly welcome among seniors

26. Recommendations (II) • Ease of use: • Self-explaining tariff and network structures • Easily manageable ticketing machines • Facilitated orientation at major stations/stops • Safety and Security • Diminish danger of accidents • Personal security: Staff presence more efficient than CCTV • Thematic and frequent Staff training • Local and participative approaches: • Identify costumer needs at local level • Intensive consultation with stakeholders necessary • Understand user groups as partner

27. Recommendations (III) • Marketing and campaigning • This growing user group is needed to generate revenues • Seniors are very loyal and satisfied - when they use PT • Marketing campaigns combined with other measures (e.g. special events, information days) can also reach younger seniors • But: Seniors do not like ‘seniors’ products’ • Car use will also depend on external factors (fuel prices, traffic restrictions) • Raising awareness among younger people is necessary • User training • Safety on the ride, how to use PT? • Particular successful among the very old, acceptance problems among younger seniors • Additional formats necessary – e.g. in combination with events

28. Recommendations (V) • Organisational level: • Improved cooperation of different departments within organisations • User organisations can be constructive and motivated partners • ‘Leaving the social corner’: senior passenger as customer • The gap between ‘social’ and ‘marketing’ orientated measures is still high – integrated thinking is necessary • Awareness raising among decision makers

29. Conclusions: Age(ing) as a process • Fit and active seniors will experience (mobility) restrictions at a later stage of life • Even if mainly car dependant nowadays, they will need PT in the future to keep their quality of life • PT needs to gain them as costumers at an earlier stage • Major changes in life such as the moment of retirement offer the possibility of changing habits • PT will only be an option if accessibility, reliability, information, personal security and customer attendance are improved

30. Conclusions: • Solutions have to consider physical but even more non-physical barriers • Senior passengers have the same needs as other customer groups, but they are more sensitive towards deficiencies • Only few ready-made solutions • Pro-active consultation with stakeholders is crucial • Need to initiate processes • Integrated approaches are necessary – planning and implementation • “Economical” and “Social” questions of PT operation will approach with the growing number of senior citizens

31. Preview to the Final Report

32. Preview to the Final Report • Background data • Demographic change • Mobility behaviour • Overview of related recent studies • Analysis of the status quo in European agglomerations • Description of barriers and drivers to implementation • Focus on good practice examples, considering both particular measures and integrated, enduring policies • Appealing format with structured sheets for good practice examples • Specific recommendations • Reference documents will be available via the Project Cooperation Space

33. Thank you for your attention!