Transport for the Elderly: Activity Patterns, Mode Choices, and Spatiotemporal Constraints

Yang Zhou, Quan Yuan and Chao Yang
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Yang Zhou: Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
Quan Yuan: Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
Chao Yang: Key Laboratory of Road and Traffic Engineering of the Ministry of Education, College of Transportation Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-13

Abstract: The rapid aging of the population has posed significant challenges to society and raised new demand for transportation services. Understanding travel needs of the elderly is crucial to making effective strategies for accommodating their demand in many newly motorized cities in developing countries such as China. Using a Markov-chain-based mixture model, we identify two main activity patterns of the elderly: recreation-shopping-oriented (RS-oriented) pattern and schooling-drop-off/pick-up-oriented (SDP-oriented) pattern. Elderly people in the RS-oriented pattern enjoy a cozy life with much time spent on recreation and shopping activities, while those in the SDP-oriented pattern take responsibility of sending grandchildren to school and taking them back home. The RS-oriented elderly people are faced with spatial constraints to access the sparsely distributed recreational sights; however, the SDP-oriented group is subject to temporal constraints when making daily trips. These results would encourage policy makers to reconsider the role of transportation in aged people’s lives and better accommodate their demand through designing safer walking and cycling environment and improving the quality of transit services.

Keywords: transportation policy; elderly; activity pattern; mixture model; clustering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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