Population ageing has been a thorny issue in many countries. One of the challenges is how to improve and change transportation design and transport policy development to adapt to the dramatic changes in the composition of our population. In this paper, we apply a network-based approach of human mobility measurement called “motif” to investigate the distinct patterns in daily travel for seniors (age 60 and above) in California using the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (California-NHTS) data. Motifs are networks of distinct locations visited in a day and the directional movements between them. Using patterns of motifs, we correlate the diverse daily mobility patterns with socio-demographic characteristics as well as built environment factors. We find that 15 distinct motifs can capture approximately 82% and 86% of the total senior respondents on workdays and non-workdays, respectively. Seniors are more likely to have simple motifs with three or fewer distinct locations on non-workdays, while they present more complex motifs during workdays. Given 65% of the included seniors are retired, a large number of seniors present diverse and complex daily mobility patterns instead of staying at home all day. In addition, given the similarity between the urban core, urban district, and urban neighborhood in function and spatial proximity, there is significant heterogeneity in the daily mobility patterns among seniors living in these areas. Furthermore, we find that seniors living in areas with higher percentages of single-family housing units are most likely to stay at home on workdays.

在许多国家，人口老龄化一直是一个棘手的问题。挑战之一是如何改进和改变交通设计和交通政策制定，以适应人口构成的巨大变化。在本文中，我们使用 2017 年全国家庭旅行调查 (California-NHTS) 数据，应用一种名为“motif”的基于网络的人类流动测量方法来调查加利福尼亚老年人（60 岁及以上）日常旅行的不同模式. 主题是一天中访问过的不同位置的网络以及它们之间的定向运动。使用主题模式，我们将多样化的日常流动模式与社会人口特征以及建筑环境因素相关联。我们发现，在工作日和非工作日，15 个不同的主题可以分别捕获大约 82% 和 86% 的高级受访者。老年人在非工作日更有可能拥有三个或更少不同位置的简单主题，而他们在工作日则呈现更复杂的主题。鉴于其中 65% 的老年人已退休，大量老年人呈现出多样化和复杂的日常出行方式，而不是整天呆在家里。此外，考虑到城市核心、城区和城市街区在功能和空间邻近度上的相似性，居住在这些地区的老年人的日常流动模式存在显着的异质性。此外，我们发现居住在单户住宅单元比例较高地区的老年人最有可能在工作日呆在家里。