Transportation for Seniors

This project aims to develop a new measure of accessibility for older adults by adopting more nuanced approaches to understanding accessibility based on older people’s perceptions and circumstances. We achieve this goal by 1) creating a perception-based accessibility score that captures heterogeneity in older people’s characteristics and perceptions; 2) developing a data-driven accessibility measure by leveraging widely adopted methods, such as gravity and cumulative opportunity scores; and 3) proposing a hybrid measure of accessibility by integrating the perceived and objective measures, and validating this new measure through focus groups involving older adults and community representatives in the region. This research will contribute significantly to our understanding of accessibility from the perspective of older adults and help decision makers integrate equity into the future policy framework while helping to address older adult’s unique mobility challenges in a post-pandemic world.

Link to the grant: https://nitc.trec.pdx.edu/research/project/1503/Transportation_for_Seniors_(T4S):_Developing_a_New_Accessibility_Measure_to_Support_Older_Adults_in_a_Post-Pandemic_World