Mobility and healthy ageing in the city: Exploring opportunities and challenges of autonomous vehicles for older adults' outdoor mobility
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Ageing constitutes one of the main impacts of on-going global demographic change. It is estimated that by 2050, there will be about two billion people aged 60 years and over, representing 22% of the global population (WHO, 2007). This proportion will be far higher in developed countries, such as the UK, where over 20% of the population is already 60 years or older, and this demographic is expected to make-up about one-third of the population by 2050 (I. Shergold & Parkhurst, 2012).
As people age, they encounter a number of challenges in relation to their outdoor mobility. The functional, sensory and cognitive changes associated with ageing means that peoples' outdoor mobility often becomes restricted in later life: Older adults may be unable to drive (Anstey et al., 2005) and become more prone to accidents (Bayam et al., 2005; Meuleners et al., 2006). Age-related changes also decrease older adults' capability to cope with environmental constraints to walking and cycling (Black & Street, 2014; Li, 2012; Zandieh et al., 2016), thereby shrinking their spatial area of mobility even within their residential neighbourhoods (Glass & Balfour, 2003). Moreover, previous research has shown a strong association between lack of access to adequate mobility and lack of access to opportunities, and social exclusion in later life (Kenyon et al., 2002; Mackett & Thoreau, 2015; I. Shergold & Parkhurst, 2012).
In order to meet the changing needs of the ageing population, a number of changes to both the built-environment and specialised services are needed (Steels, 2015; Zandieh et al., 2016). Indeed, in recent years, creating age-friendly cities and communities has become a prominent issue in urban planning, public health and social policy (Buffel et al., 2012). Among the priority areas on the age-friendly cities agenda is how to encourage active ageing, reduce social exclusion and enhance quality of life as people age (WHO, 2007). New technologies are increasingly assuming prominence in addressing the challenges associated with ageing. For example, indoor assistive technologies, such as sensor-based monitoring systems, are being used to support the elderly at home by increasing the ease and safety in performing various tasks and contributing to their independence and autonomy (McCreadie & Tinker, 2005; Tsertsidis, 2019; Woodcock et al., 2019). Technologies in the form of mobility aids are also being used to assist older adults to overcome environmental demands that act as barriers to their outdoor mobility (Löfqvist et al., 2016).
With advances in artificial intelligence and Information and Communication Technology (ICT), urban transportation systems are gradually being transformed (F. Cugurullo et al., 2020). From coventional vehicles with no automation (i.e. Level 0), these technologies are now enabling advanced levels of automation that allow a human driver to cede full control of safety-critical functions under certain traffic or environmental conditions (i.e. Level 3 automation) (NHTSA, 2013). Full self-driving vehicles (i.e. Level 4 automation) are being designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire journey (NHTSA, 2013).
Fully-autonomous vehicles are expected to become part of the everyday, potentially providing mobility and accessibility benefits to different groups of people in society (F. Cugurullo & Acheampong, 2020; Milakis et al., 2017). With fully autonomous vehicles, age-related impairments, physical and sensory disabilities may no longer become barriers to motorized transport use. Consequently, it has been widely claimed that autonomous vehicles could help older adults overcome their outdoor mobility challenges (Curl et al., 2018; I. Shergold et al., 2016) and may provide more opportunities for older adults to more often travel outside their residential neighbourhoods. Realising the potential mobility and accessibility benefits of this new transport technology will depend on a number of factors of which the attitudes and perceived opportunities and challenges of older people are crucial. Despite being critical, empirical research addressing these issues from older adults' perspectives is limited (see e.g. Faber & van Lierop, 2020; Harper et al., 2016; Kovacs et al., 2020; Yang & Coughlin, 2014).
This paper, therefore, contributes to the evolving literature on the possible accessibility and mobility implications of autonomous vehicles, by focusing on older adults in Greater Manchester, UK. Adopting a qualitative design DES, it explores older adults' percieved outdoor mobility problems in the urban area. Within the context of their outdoor mobility challenges, the study explores older adults' perception of the mobility opportunities that autonomous vehicles could offer, and their concerns of using the technology. It also explores their preferred modes of use of autonomous vehicles (i.e autonomous private vehicles, autonomous public transport and shared autonomous vehicle services). Based on the findings, a number of implications are drawn for urban policy and planning at the intersection of mobility and healthy ageing in future cities.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Following this introduction section, an overview of the literature is presented in Section 2. Section 3 and Section 4 focus on the research methods and results, respectively. A discussion of the results and their implications for urban planning and policy is presented in Section 5, followed by our final reflections on the contributions of the currents paper as well as the limitations and directions for further research in Section 6.
Section snippets
Situating autonomous vehicles in older adults' outdoor mobility
Outdoor mobility encompasses peoples' movement in the city or neighbourhood, using different means such as active transport (i.e., walking and cycling) and motorized forms of transport (e.g., private car and public transport). Outdoor mobility is important for everyone's health, but it is particularly critical for healthy ageing (Centre for Ageing Better, 2019; Holley-Moore & Creighton, 2015; WHO, 2020). It benefits older adults' physical and mental health by providing access to facilities and
Case study
Greater Manchester (GM) in the North-West of England, was purposively selected as a case study for this exploratory research. The reasons are two-fold. First, as we will show later in this section, like the rest of the UK, GM is undergoing demographic change that is expected to result in significant increases in the size of the aged population over the next two decades. Research on the mobility needs of an ageing society, in the context of emerging transport technologies, is therefore vital.
Sample characteristics
The sample comprised seven female and eight male participants, who were between 65 and 86 years old (average age of 71 years). Nine participants were in a relationship (married or other forms of relationship). In terms of education, twelve participants had obtained qualification at or higher than GCSE (General Certificates of Secondary Education or its equivalents) while two participants had qualifications below GCSE. Only one participant had no formal education/qualification. Ten participants
Discussion of findings and their implications
This exploratory study has examined older adults' perception of the opportunities and concerns about autonomous vehicles in the context of their outdoor mobility needs. As summarised in Fig. 2, the analysis of the in-depth qualitative interview data first focused on the current travel characteristics and outdoor mobility challenges faced by the older adults who participated in the study. These then provided the background and context to explore how the participants perceive the potential
Conclusion, limitations and further work
This study has explored old adults' perception of the opportunities and concerns about autonomous vehicles in the context of their outdoor mobility challenges. It has provided critical insights on older adults'—one of the vulnerable groups in the city- attitude towards autonomous vehicles that could inform planning and policy interventions at the intersection of transport and healthy ageing in future cities. There are however, a number of limitations worth highlighting for further research.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Razieh Zandieh: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Ransford A. Acheampong: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank all the older adults who participated in this study for offering their time and providing information free of charge. The authors would also like to thank colleagues at The University Manchester and contacts at Age-Friendly Design group at Manchester City Council, who facilitated the participants recruitment process.
Funding
This research received no external funding.
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