Catching the Bus in Old Age - Methodological Aspects of Accessibility Assessments in Public Transport

Abstract: Engagement in daily activities is central for people’s health and well-being. Today, our activity arenas mostly cover great geographical areas, and to reach different activities we must travel. However, people with functional limitations are sometimes restricted in their travelling. In order to investigate accessibility problems in different travel chains, the overarching objective of this thesis was to explore basic prerequisites for the development of assessments of physical accessibility in urban public transport from a travel chain perspective. The methods used were objective environmental assessment, assessment of functional limitations and dependence on mobility aids, participant observation using the critical incident technique, and focus group interview. The participants were elderly people with functional limitations used to travelling in everyday life. The exploration started in applied research, and methodological difficulties in performing objective environmental assessments of real travel chains were identified. No method for reporting functional capacity at group level in terms of profiles of functional limitations could be found, but this was explored and a method promising for further research was identified. During the analysis of accessibility problems reported by Service Route travellers, the transactional relationships between person, environment and activity were reflected upon at individual and group/societal level. As a result, the concept of usability was considered important to explore as well. The theoretical and methodological reflections made in this collaborative work between occupational therapy and traffic planning and engineering contributes to the building of a theoretical framework for accessibility applicable in research and practice, as well as for further development of accessibility assessments.