Improving accessibility for older people - investing in a valuable asset

This paper explores the contribution of older people to society, the role of mobility in the quality of life of older people, and whether making it easier for older people to travel would enable them to increase their contribution. The paper commences by considering evidence on the economic value of older people to society. This shows that older people make a net contribution through expenditure in shops, employment, voluntary work, childcare and taxation which exceeds their cost to the taxpayer. The assumptions underlying the calculations are examined and found to be robust. The patterns of travel of older people are examined and found to be consistent with the estimates of the economic contribution of older people. Mobility provides many intrinsic benefits for older people, facilitating independence, reducing social isolation and physical activity. Evidence from the examples of the ability to drive and providing free bus travel is considered. Then the contribution of older people to society in future is examined and how travel contributes to this. It is shown that changes in older people׳s mobility would affect their contribution to society. Ways in which the mobility of older people could be increased are identified

Gender, mental health and travel

This paper examines gender differences in travel behaviour by people with mental health conditions based on the results of an on-line survey. Responses from 363 people have been weighted by figures from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2014 to make them representative of the population with mental illness in England. The evidence from the surveys presented in this paper shows that more women than men have panic attacks, but that more men than women have communication difficulties. More women than men are prevented by their mental health condition from leaving home, using bus, rail and metro and from buying rail tickets in advance. Significantly more women than men suffered from the following anxieties when travelling: the need for support, wayfinding, interacting with fellow travellers and concerns about the failure of the bus, train or car. For women, the greatest need seems to be policies and actions that will increase their confidence when travelling such as access to staff when assistance is required and clear information when travelling, plus the opportunity to receive travel training. More men than women wanted improvements to the travelling environment, such as less clutter on the street. Summing up, implementing improvements to increase confidence when travelling could help to reduce gender inequalities

Using transport policy to increase physical activity

The objective of this paper is to consider whether transport policy can contribute to the improvement of health by increasing walking and cycling and hence levels of physical activity in a way that is likely to be effective and acceptable to the public. The work is based on a project carried out for the UK Department for Transport to review the available evidence on the role of transport in increasing levels of physical activity. A key feature of this approach would be to shift people from the car to the alternatives of walking, cycling and use of local public transport. In the paper, the direct contribution of travel to physical activity is discussed, and then the barriers to active travel are examined. Then a range of transport policy options are considered including the impact of the various policy options on walking and cycling

Policy interventions to facilitate travel by people with mental health conditions

About a quarter of the adults living in England have been diagnosed with a mental health condition (for example, anxiety and depression). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the difficulties faced by these people when they travel, and ways in which policy interventions could be used to encourage them to travel more. The main evidence in the paper comes from a weighted sample of 363 people with mental health conditions who completed an on-line survey. The paper concentrates on anxiety issues. The anxieties are considered under five headings: interacting with fellow travellers, interacting with staff and purchasing tickets, wayfinding, needing support, and needing to take urgent action. Policy interventions to improve access to infrastructure and services to help address the anxieties are discussed under these headings. The number of respondents who say that they would travel more if some of the interventions were introduced is then considered. The paper concludes that there are ways in which some of the anxieties that people have when travelling can be addressed and that introducing these types of intervention would increase travel by people with mental health conditions

Overcoming the barriers to walking for children

This paper is an output from the project CAPABLE (Children?s Activities,Perceptions and Behaviour in the Local Environment) being carried out at UCL,jointly between the Centre for Transport Studies, the Department of Psychology, theBartlett School of Planning and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. The overallaim of the project, which runs from 1 August 2004 to 31 July 2006, is to examine theinteraction between children and the local environment, including identifying howchildren use open space and streets, and why they go to some places but not others.This paper draws on results from questionnaires completed by children about theextent to which they are allowed out unaccompanied by an adult. The surveys werecarried out in four schools, two in Hertfordshire, the area immediately north ofLondon, and two in the London Borough of Lewisham. The purpose is to establish theextent to which the children are allowed by their parents to go out unaccompanied byadults. The issues covered include whether the children go out walking or cyclingwithout an adult, whether they are allowed out alone to visit friends houses, go outafter dark or to cross main roads. The results are considered in terms of the children?sage and gender, and in terms of the households? car ownership level and the strengthof its local social networks. It is found that more of the children in Hertfordshire areallowed out alone, despite the fact that the factors that seem to correlate with beingallowed out unaccompanied are stronger in Lewisham. It is concluded that this maywell be due to environmental factors, real and perceived

From footway design to the street environment: removing the barriers to walking

7-9 October 200

Increasing the amount of walking by children

Children’s car use is increasing. As a result of this, they are walking less. This has serious implications for their quantity of physical activity and consequently for their health. In this paper, findings are presented from a research project being carried out in the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London to examine these effects. A major element of the research involved fitting 200 children with portable motion sensors for a period of four days to measure their quantity of physical activity. In parallel with this, they kept travel and activity diaries, so that it was possible to establish how much energy they consumed in various activities, including walking. It is shown that walking to school for a week consumes more calories than one week’s worth of physical education (PE) and games lessons, and that children who walk to events tend to use more energy in participating in them than children who are driven by car. The effectiveness of a specific initiative to encourage children to shift from the car to walking, namely the walking bus, is examined in detail, and found to be effective in helping to achieve this objective

Cities for children: the effects of car use on their lives

9-11 June 2004 In Britain, children are walking less than they used to. A major factor causing this decrease is the growth in car use. These trends are reducing children’s quantity of physical activity, with serious implications for their health. The purpose of this paper is to explore these themes using results from a 3-year research project entitled ‘Reducing children’s car use: the health and potential car dependency impacts’ which has been carried out in the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London in collaboration with others including Hertfordshire County Council, with fieldwork being carried out in Hertfordshire, an area immediately north of London. A major component of the project was a study of 200 children aged between 10 and 13 years of age using motion sensors coupled with the use of a travel and activity diary over four days. The sensors measured movement in three dimensions which was converted to activity calories, a measure of physical activity. Events from the travel and activity diaries were mapped onto the data from the sensors so that it was possible to isolate and analyse specific time periods, events and journeys. From these data, the comparative effects of different forms of transport on children’s physical activity have been established, producing clear evidence of the benefits of walking compared with car travel. It is found that the use of the car is linked to particular types of activity. For example, structured out-of-home activities, such as clubs and sports lessons tend to be reached by car while informal activities such as playing, are associated more with walking. This means that the shift from the latter to the former is one of the factors underlying children’s increasing use of the car. The motion sensors have facilitated the calculation of the intensity of various activities in terms of using activity calories. Walking is second only to physical education (PE) or games lessons in intensity. It was found that, for the older children, walking to and from school for a week used more activity calories than two hours of PE or games lessons, which is the recommended standard in Britain. It was also found that children who walk to activities are more active when they arrive at activities than those who travel by car, particularly in the more energetic activities, which suggests that walking brings wider health benefits than is generally recognised. Another strand of the project upon which this paper is based is the evaluation of walking buses. From the various surveys in the study it appears that about half of the trips on walking buses were previously walked, but there is not an equivalent decrease in the number of car trips because many of the children were being dropped at school in the course of a longer trip by a parent