Leisure mobility and mobility problems of elderly people in urban, suburban and rural environment: preliminary results from the research project FRAME

Ageing is a lifelong process. But currently the attitudes about ageing and the opportunities for older people are changing. The foreseeable demographic development in the next 30 years provides a challenge to analyse and develop for the expected social and spatial effects of an ageing population. Formerly, the image of ageing included homogeneous portraits of immobile, lonely and frail older people and their activity spaces were mainly concentrated on the neighbourhood environment. In the future, more older people will be healthier, they will live longer, they will be more mobile having their own car, and more time will be available for leisure activities in additional and more distant areas. For urban and regional planning this development contains the following challenges: - The increasing variation within the age groups ranging from very active and mobile lifestyles to uninvolved and immobile lifestyles creates concurrent requirements for urban and regional structures. - The contradiction of restricting the negative impact of car-related environmental effects and supporting a self-reliant mobility of older people - especially in rural areas - cannot be solved with conventional planning methods. - The decentralized accessibility of service and leisure infrastructure is decreasing because of a general tendency of concentration and the 'ageing of the suburbs' meaning the percentage of older people in suburbs is growing. Serving this (sub)urban development is as critical as limiting it. Besides these changes, services and urban infrastructure do not only provide functional but also social qualities (e.g. meeting a neighbour on the way to the grocery). For older people who don't drive a car (any more), mobility is definitely restricted when the possibilities of activity become less accessible. First empirical results from the research project "FRAME - Leisure Mobility of Older People", a cooperation of geographers, psychologists and transportation planners from the Universities of Bonn and Dortmund, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research will be presented. The aim of the project is a concept of a mobility design for leisure activities of older people in consideration of environmental, social and ecological constraints. In the Region of Bonn and the Eifel an analysis will be led focussing on urban, suburban and rural areas. The different spatial frame conditions will be analysed in relation to leisure mobility of older people. So far, the relationship between residential satisfaction, access to a car, transportation behaviour etc. cannot easily be connected to the spatial structure because of the simultaneous impact of social and spatial effects. Causalities are difficult to state: The average use of a car is not only determined by the built environment, but the choice of the housing location was made with the expectation of the constant availability of a car. For the conceptual part it is important to state, that community structures are not only determined by the built environment, but by social, organizational and operative structures as well. Existing social networks are a basis for mobility, because for older people, the question often is whether an accompanying person or a travel companion is available. An adequate design might be an organizational concept to support older people moving to a new home early enough within a short distance. The aim would be for example to maintain the social network and to decrease the distance to infrastructure or public transportation. Urban and regional structures in general are crucial for self-reliant mobility of older people. The structure needs to follow the aim to secure an inspiring environment and to facilitate the daily business getting done even without a car. To ensure quality of life, motivations and reasons for mobility need to be known.

Lifestyles, choice of housing location and daily mobility. Conceptual framework, methods and preliminary results of the interdisciplinary research project "StadtLeben"

Today, spatial research and planning is confronted with complex frame conditions which have substantially changed in the past decades. Thus, a comprehensive social change is stated, giving new room for individual development, but on the other hand making new decisions necessary (cue: individualisation). At the same time, settlement structures and time-regimes - essential conditions for spatial mobility - have developed dynamically (cues: decentralisation, flexibilisation). These trends are spatially resulting: - in a growing demand for housing size, which is realised predominantly in suburban and post-suburban settlement forms, - in high volumes of traffic in leisure, holidays, supply and commuting which are realised primarily by car and - in leisure and holidays - also by plane, - in changing mobility rationales; for instance, migrations are increasingly substituted by high distance commuting, - in new, partially virtual mobility forms (internet surfing, e-commerce, online banking, 'virtual leisure', event leisure). These mobility forms are characterised by interdependencies with physical passenger travel and freight transport as well as locational choice. From the perspective of a sustainable urban development, these trends have to be partially assessed as incompatible. At the same time, they offer chances for a more sustainable configuration of locations and transport. For instance, the change from industrial to service society facilitates the renaissance of the spatial integration of housing and working. New information and communication technologies allow to reduce job and supply trips (tele working, e-commerce). However, hitherto research and planning show serious methodological problems in the consideration of the stated changes. The explanation patterns of existing approaches for spatial mobility are mainly based upon spatial and individual restrictions. Neither the increasing degrees of freedom nor the subjective rationales behind mobility decisions are adequately considered. The referee presents the conceptual framework, methods and preliminary results of the interdisciplinary research project "StadtLeben". In this project, transport researchers, urban planners, geographers and psychologists from the universities of Aachen, Dortmund, Berlin (FU) and Bochum are working together. The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the research programme "Building and Housing". The central research question focuses on the interrelation between social structures (lifestyles, milieus), space-time-structures, housing resp. choice of housing location, and everyday mobility. In exemplary study areas in the urban regions of Köln and Leipzig, the specific interdependency of lifestyles, milieus and space-time-structures (f.i. infrastructure facilities, characteristic urban structures) as central influences on spatial action is investigated. In doing so, it is assumed that these interdependencies are to be understood as "contextual figures" rather than as clearly defined one-directional causal chains. The proposed research approach shall help to investigate the complex and manifold interrelations between social and spatial structures as well as the choice of housing location and everyday mobility. By means of this advanced descriptive and explanatory approach, target group-oriented and efficient planning and design strategies shall be developed. Together with planning practitioners, action-oriented knowledge as well as suggestions for planning methods (participation, processes, competence) shall be derived.

Time use and the life course: a study of key events in the lives of men and women using panel data

Links between gender, activity/travel patterns and the life course have become a significant subject of inquiry in recent years. This paper draws upon a previous study that found that key events in the life course had significant effects on the complexity of trip and activity patterns. Some of these effects differed significantly between men and women. The panel data analysis presented here uses descriptive statistics to illustrate more clearly the patterns of time use before and after key events such as the birth of a child, entry into the labour market, or retirement. Further, regression models of time use changes for employed work, out-of-home leisure, escort, and time spent at home are presented. The data used is the German Mobility Panel (GMP) 1994 to 2014 in which households and their members are asked three times in three successive years to report the trips they made over a week. The results show the gendered effects of various key events on change in time use. Key events in partnership and the family affect women's time use more than men's, while for labour market events it is mostly the other way round

Daily Mobility in Berlin

The article deals with the process of integration of East and West Berlin by means of the population's everyday mobility. Analysing activity spaces in four small-scale study areas on both sides of the former Berlin wall, there is evidence for significant differences between adjacent areas on both sides of the former wall as well as between different groups within an area. The interviewees' place of origin plays an important role. The question is, how – on the one hand – groups of persons might be characterised who tend to integrate the respective other half of the city more strongly into their everyday life ('border crossers') or – on the other hand – people still tend to concentrate on their respective half of the city a decade after the fall of the wall ('half-urbanites'). On the basis of spatial behaviour and the attitude towards the city's other half, four groups are differentiated. They are examined by a discriminant analysis as well as on the basis of semi-structured interviews with regard to dominating patterns of interpreting the German unification and their own personal identity. These patterns provide a considerable contribution for a better understanding of group-specific differences in the choice of mobility behaviour. From these results, consequences are drawn for the explanation of travel behaviour and for the theory and methodology of travel behaviour research. The hypothesis is developed that spatial action may not fully be explained by restrictive factors (infrastructure, distribution of opportunities, socio-demographic factors etc.). Additional factors which are empirically much more difficult to handle, such as attitudes, lifestyles, biographical experiences and long-term spatial orientations, are playing a role. The modelling of travel behaviour is theoretically incomplete by neglecting individual reasons of action. Any prediction of the future transport development might at least partly suffer from this weakness

Does the car make elderly people happy and mobile? Settlement structures, car availability and leisure mobility of the elderly

According to gerontological mobility research, appropriate settlement structures at the neighbourhood level and car availability are both playing a prominent role in the maintenance of mobility of elderly people. However, car availability is strongly connected to other individual attributes like age, health and gender. The paper presents empirical results from Germany, which support the thesis that car availability is not a cause for mobility, but rather a result of a specific life situation and way of life of elderly people, which is associated with a specific type of mobility. What is more, there is no evidence for a significant influence of settlement structures on mobility. The contribution is based on multiple regression analyses of leisure mobility of elderly people living in three different spatial contexts

Changes in travel mode choice: the impact of period, cohort, and life-course effects

Dieses Arbeitspapier untersucht Veränderungen der individuellen Verkehrsmittelwahl von einem Jahr zum nächsten. Es stützt sich auf drei unterschiedliche Forschungsstränge: Veränderungen des Verkehrsverhaltens, Mobilitätsbiografien und Kohortenanalysen. Als Datengrundlage dient das Deutsche Mobilitätspanel 1994-2008, in dem Haushalte und ihre Mitglieder drei mal in drei aufeinander folgenden Jahren ihre Wege über eine Woche hinweg berichten. Die berichteten Veränderungen werden in Regressionsanalysen auf den Einfluss von Schlüsselereignissen im Lebenslauf, Kohorteneffekten und Periodeneffekten untersucht. Dabei werden soziodemografische und räumliche Variablen kontrolliert. Da aufgrund der Panelstruktur der Daten die Unabhängigkeit der Beobachtungen nicht gegeben ist, wird ein cluster-robuster Regressionsansatz gewählt. OLS-Regressionen werden zum Vergleich ebenfalls geschätzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen die Robustheit der OLS-Regressionen, denn je zwei Modelle mit dem gleichen Set an Variablen sind für die beiden Schätzmethoden extrem ähnlich. Inhaltlich zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass sich hinter der Stabilität der Verkehrsmittelwahl im Aggregat 'unter der Oberfläche' viel verändert, ausgelöst durch Veränderungen im Lebenslauf, individuelle und haushaltsbezogene soziodemografische Merkmale, und den räumlichen Kontext. Die Veränderungen, die durch Schlüsselereignisse im Lebenslauf ausgelöst werden, stützen den Ansatz der Mobilitätsbiografien. Allerdings legen verschiedene signifikante Effekte von Zustandsvariablen nahe, dass die Verkehrsmittelwahl sich auch ohne solche Schlüsselereignisse verändern kann. Das Arbeitspapier dient der Vorbereitung von geschlechtsspezifischen Analysen von Veränderungen des Verkehrsverhaltens.This paper studies changes in people's travel mode choice from one year to the next. It is informed by three distinct discourses: travel behaviour change, the mobility biographies approach, and cohort analysis. The data used is the German Mobility Panel (GMP) 1994 to 2008 in which households and their members are asked three times in three subsequent years to report the trips they made over a week. The changes reported are regressed to key events over the life course, cohort effects and period effects, while various sociodemographic and spatial attributes are controlled. Due to the non-independent nature of panel observation, a cluster robust regression approach is used. OLS regressions are estimated for comparison. The results suggest considerable robustness of OLS regression, as each two models including the same set of variables are extremely similar, no matter which estimation method has been used. The findings suggest that behind the aggregate stability in travel mode choice over time there is much change 'under the surface', induced by life course changes, individual and household sociodemographic, and spatial context. The changes found induced by life course related key events favour the notion of mobility biographies. However, various significant effects of baseline variables suggest that mode choice may change even without any key event. The paper serves the preparation of gendered analysis of travel behaviour changes

Leaving, staying in and returning to the hometown

Couples' residential decisions are based on a large variety of factors including housing preferences, family and other social ties, socialisation and residential biography (e.g. earlier experience in the life course) and environmental factors (e.g. housing market, labour market). This study examines, firstly, to what extent people stay in, return to or leave their hometown (referred to as ‘migration type’). We refer to the hometown as the place where most of childhood and adolescence is spent. Secondly, we study which conditions shape a person’s migration type. We mainly focus on variables capturing elements of the residential biography and both partners’ family ties and family socialisation. We focus on the residential choices made at the time of family formation, i.e. when the first child is born. We employ multinomial regression modelling and cross-tabulations, based on two generations in a sample of families who mostly live in the wider Ruhr area, born around 1931 (parents) and 1957 (adult children). We find that migration type is significantly affected by a combination of both partners' place of origin, both partners' parents' places of residence, the number of previous moves, level of education and hometown population size. We conclude that complex patterns of experience made over the life course, socialisation and gendered patterns are at work. These mechanisms should be kept in mind when policymakers develop strategies to attract (return) migrants

Leaving, staying in and returning to the hometown: Couple's residential location choices at the time of family formation

Wohnstandortentscheidungen von Paaren basieren auf einer Vielzahl von Faktoren. Dazu gehören ihre individuellen Wohnstandortpräferenzen, sozialen (insbesondere familiären) Bindungen, wohnbiografischen Erfahrungen und Sozialisation und die räumlichen Rahmenbedingungen. Dieser Beitrag geht der Frage nach, in welchem Maße Menschen den Ort der Kindheit und Jugend verlassen, an diesem Ort bleiben oder zu ihm zurückkehren. Zudem wird untersucht, wovon dieser Migrationstyp abhängt. Im Fokus stehen dabei Einflussgrößen, die Elemente der Wohnbiographie, der familiären Bindungen und der familiären Sozialisation beider Partner erfassen. Dies wird zum Zeitpunkt der Familiengründung betrachtet. Es wird ein Familiendatensatz, der hauptsächlich im Ruhrgebiet wohnende erwachsenen Kinder (geboren um 1957) und ihre Eltern (geboren um 1931) umfasst, mithilfe von Kreuztabellen sowie multinomialen Regressionsmodellen ausgewertet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Migrationstyp signifikant von dem Ort der Kindheit und Jugend und dem Wohnort der Eltern beider Partner, der Anzahl vorheriger Umzüge, der Bildung und der Bevölkerungsgröße des Ortes der Kindheit und Jugend abhängt. Es lässt sich schlussfolgern, dass Erfahrungen aus dem Lebensverlauf, Sozialisation und Geschlechterunterschiede komplex zusammenwirken. Für die Planungspraxis, die sich mit Abwanderung und der Aktivierung von Rückwanderung beschäftigt, liefert der Beitrag wertvolle Hinweise.Couples' residential decisions are based on a large variety of factors including housing preferences, family and other social ties, socialisation and residential biography (e.g. earlier experience in the life course) and environmental factors (e.g. housing market, labour market). This study examines, firstly, to what extent people stay in, return to or leave their hometown (referred to as 'migration type'). We refer to the hometown as the place where most of childhood and adolescence is spent. Secondly, we study which conditions shape a person's migration type. We mainly focus on variables capturing elements of the residential biography and both partners' family ties and family socialisation. We focus on the residential choices made at the time of family formation, i.e. when the first child is born. We employ multinomial regression modelling and cross-tabulations, based on two generations in a sample of families who mostly live in the wider Ruhr area, born around 1931 (parents) and 1957 (adult children). We find that migration type is significantly affected by a combination of both partners' place of origin, both partners' parents' places of residence, the number of previous moves, level of education and hometown population size. We conclude that complex patterns of experience made over the life course, socialisation and gendered patterns are at work. These mechanisms should be kept in mind when policymakers develop strategies to attract (return) migrants

Investigating spatio-temporal mobility patterns and changes in metro usage under the impact of COVID-19 using Taipei Metro smart card data

Modern public transit systems are often run with automated fare collection (AFC) systems in combination with smart cards. These systems passively collect massive amounts of detailed spatio-temporal trip data, thus opening up new possibilities for public transit planning and management as well as providing new insights for urban planners. We use smart card trip data from Taipei, Taiwan, to perform an in-depth analysis of spatio-temporal station-to-station metro trip patterns for a whole week divided into several time slices. Based on simple linear regression and line graphs, days of the week and times of the day with similar temporal passenger flow patterns are identified. We visualize magnitudes of passenger flow based on actual geography. By comparing flows for January to March 2019 and for January to March 2020, we look at changes in metro trips under the impact of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) that caused a state of emergency around the globe in 2020. Our results show that metro usage under the impact of COVID-19 has not declined uniformly, but instead is both spatially and temporally highly heterogeneous

The gender dimensions of travel time use in Germany

Time use during travel has been the subject of considerable research in recent years thanks to its crucial role in determining the utility of travel time. While most of these studies have documented the effects of demographics and trip characteristics on travel time use, the effect of gender is still ambiguous. To understand the role of gender in travel time use, we explore the effect of gender interaction with non-travel time use behavior (daily habits, multitasking and preferences), joint travel (travel companion), and economic situation (income and working hours) on various time use activities (reading, ICT use and talking) during travel. Moreover, we address the mixed and scant evidence from prior studies regarding the effect of sociodemographic, residential and trip characteristics on travel time use. The study used the cross-sectional German Time Use Survey 2012/13 data and employed multi-level binary logistic regression for analysis. The results indicate four important findings: (1) women's socializing during travel is principally influenced by primary time spent on interaction with children and ICT usage, while men’s socializing during travel is positively influenced by traveling with their partners and socializing habits; (2) both women’s and men’s solitary activities during travel (e.g. reading/ICT use) are influenced by their economic situation (e.g. income, working hours) and daily non-travel time use habits (reading habits/ICT use habits); (3) individuals’ solitary time use during travel is positively influenced by other potential determinants such as living in semi-urban areas/East Germany, driving or traveling by public transport; and (4) socializing during travel is positively influenced by living with partners, having young children, evening/night/weekend trips, maintenance/leisure trips, traveling by public transport and walking