ANEXO: RELACIÓN DE CRÉDITOS EXTRAORDINARIOS:

A number of factors which act as barriers to, or facilitators of mobility for older road users have been identified. These include;

 Pavement quality

 Lighting

 Footpath obstruction

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 Traffic conditions

These factors will be incorporated into the performance indicators for pedestrian mobility.

2.13 Discussion

A key limitation of much of the existing work is that it fails to make a strong enough distinction between mobility, accessibility and usability. This may mean that difficulties with specific locations can be over-looked: Provided infrastructure may make a particular location accessible (for example, by providing a kerb alongside a bus stop which allows for level access to the vehicle) whilst at the same time not ensuring that it is usable for older people (if for example the same kerb makes it impossible for mobility-limited older passengers to cross the road to board the bus) In many existing studies of accessibility, the disutility of walking as a mode, and the additional “costs” that it imposes are the starting points for the work. However, for older people, travel time may not be an important factor in making travel decisions. As has been stated, in the case of older people, maintaining mobility has been shown to be a factor in staying mentally and physically well for longer. Rather than being an additional cost, walking may in fact generate additional benefits, which are much harder to measure. These are the benefits referred to by Metz, which form the basis of his argument that it is important to look for better ways of measuring and assessing mobility.

Much existing work has grown out of concerns about social exclusion and the influence transport provision can have on exclusion. For this reason, there are two issues with adapting current work to look specifically at the needs of older road

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users: Firstly, much existing work prioritises access to activities and services which are not of specific relevance to older road users. For example, the DfT’s Core National Accessibility Indicators (DfT, 2009, from (Titheridge, Mackett et al. ) ) include; number and percentage of children aged 5 – 10 years within 15 and 30 minutes of primary school; number and percentage of people in receipt of Jobseekers’ allowance within 20 and 40 minutes of a location with more than 500 jobs. It is clear that there are other indicators which would be more important in the context of older people. Whilst one would expect these to include the Health and Supermarket indicators, the work of Titheridge and Soloman suggests that all destination-based indicators have limited relevance to the measurement of safe mobility for older people. Indicators of key importance to older people need to look at a much more micro-level. Additionally, social exclusion resulting from transport issues is generally assumed to be a more significant problem for those without access to a car. As a result, there is a broad body of work which looks at non-car journeys, but very little which looks at mobility issues for those who DO have access to a car. In the case of older people, mobility can still be a problem, especially where the usability of the system for those with, for example, shorter reaction times or poorer peripheral vision, may lead to issues of road safety or driver confidence.

King, 2000 says;

“Road use by older people has a number of elements; road quality, lighting, presence and quality of footpaths, standards for signage, traffic signals, complexity of intersections…. The road environment can be changed to make it easier for drivers to drive safely, and hence to continue driving longer, and for older pedestrians to walk safely…”

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The mobility issues which face older drivers must also be addressed if a complete picture of mobility for older road users is to be addressed.

The incorporation of cost of travel into some existing models is also problematic; many older people in the UK are entitled to free bus passes, and for many others, journey cost may simply not be a high priority factor when making travel decisions. “Older people” are a socially diverse group, and whilst there will be some for whom cost of travel is an issue, there are many others for whom it is not. It is therefore not always appropriate to give a high weighting to costs.

According to Titheridge and Solomon (2007)

“a number of studies question the premise that accessibility as defined… in terms of access to destinations and time taken to arrive at them is the main concern of older persons….Travel to achieve access to desired people and places is only one element of this concept. The others are the psychological benefits of “getting out and about”, the exercise benefits, involvement in the local community and the feeling of the possibility of making trips”

A number of key characteristics of mobility measures have been identified. These include;

 The necessity of looking specifically at the needs of older road users, rather than looking more broadly at all socially excluded groups (for example,

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including the unemployed) or all mobility-limited groups (including the disabled)

 The ability to incorporate mobility for car drivers as well as pedestrians

 The importance of micro-level mobility factors such as pavement condition, obstacles etc, as opposed to destination-based measures such as proximity of services

 The importance of looking at mobility and usability, not just at accessibility, as services which are generally accessible may nevertheless be unusable for mobility-limited older people

 The ability to incorporate some of the more nebulous and intangible aspects of mobility, such as feeling part of the community.

In terms of the methodology by which this may be done, mapping mobility and/usability constraints using a combination of street audit, questionnaire and focus groups is a promising methodology. Whilst the studies assessed here were not targeted specifically at older road users, nor at mobility and usability, additional variables (such as presence of fixed or moveable obstacles) could easily be incorporated. This would make it more relevant to the aims and objectives of this particular study, but could also result in a more sophisticated model, capable of describing in more detail the problems faced by older road users.

Before and after studies are not thought to present a practicable methodology for this work. Similarly, output-based measures may be a good way of assessing the

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accessibility of activities and services, but are not well-suited to looking at mobility and usability, since, as has been explained, infrastructure can be accessible whilst at the same time being unusable, and presenting a barrier to mobility for older road users.

For this reason, the proposed methodology for assessing the mobility of older road users in urban areas will use a street audit approach to identify those elements of the infrastructure which previous work has shown hinder the ability and willingness of older road users to make journeys. The methodology will look at both pedestrians and car-drivers, as existing studies do not appear to focus sufficient attention on the needs of drivers. As Titheridge and Soloman point out, whilst many older people do not currently have access to their own transport, the proportion of the over-60s who do is expected to rise dramatically; 71% of women and 90% of men aged 50 – 59 hold a driving license, compared to 27% of women and 69% of men over 70. As a result, mobility for older road users cannot be seen purely in terms of walk access and public transport use, and the extent to which road infrastructure facilitates mobility for drivers must be incorporated.