Social Sustainability Issues and Older Adults’ Dependence on Automobiles in Low-Density Environments

Hitomi Nakanishi and John Black
Additional contact information
Hitomi Nakanishi: Faculty of Business, Government and Law and Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra, Bruce, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia
John Black: Faculty of Health Sciences, Ageing, Work and Health Research Unit, University of Sydney, Lidcombe NSW 1825, Australia

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: An implicit assumption underlying government strategies to achieve a more sustainable urban transportation system is that all automobile users will be encouraged or persuaded to use more “green” transportation: public transportation, walking and cycling. Little consideration has been given as to how sustainable transportation policies and programmess might impact on different age groups in society, including those retired or semi-retired, despite the fact that an unprecedented number of older drivers will be on the highways in the next few decades. There is limited literature on the contextual factors behind their continued reliance on automobiles, their actual driving behavior (e.g., route choice and time of day to drive) framed within the context of social sustainability. This paper introduces the elements of transportation and social sustainability then conducts a comprehensive international literature review focusing on older drivers, their travel choices and associated social sustainability issues. It describes a case study, low-density city and presents empirical evidence, from two surveys conducted in Canberra, Australia. The paper concludes with future research directions that address these issues associated with sustainable transportation.

Keywords: social sustainability; older drivers; automobile-dependence; green transportation; low-density (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/7289/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/7289/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:6:p:7289-7309:d:50855

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().