A Comparison of Accessibility As Measured by Planners and Accessibility as Experienced by Older People and Those with Disabilities

Abstract

Transport planners are increasingly concerned with tackling issues such as social inclusion, unemployment, poor skills levels and bad health by increasing access to services and facilities such as jobs, education and healthcare for all groups of society. To identify accessibility gaps and monitor progress various indicators and targets are used, for example, the UK Department for Transport uses a range of indicators based on journey times by public transport [DfT, 2009]. Work carried out in the context of the AUNT-SUE (Accessibility and User Needs in Transport in Sustainable Urban Environments) project found that these indicators did not reflect the travel patterns of older people and those with disabilities, their perceptions, or their aspirations [Titheridge and Solomon, 2007]. This work went on to develop a series of accessibility benchmarks, through focus groups with older and disabled people, that reflected their needs and aspirations. However, embedded within these benchmarks was the concept that journeys could be made “with reasonable ease”; what constitutes reasonable ease is very subjective and can vary considerable between individuals, depending on their capabilities, confidence and past experiences, amongst others. Thus a key problem faced by planners is how can accessibility be measured and monitored objectively, in order to form a sound basis for making decisions regarding potential improvements, whilst taking into account the subjective and very individual aspects of accessibility? Following on from the development of the benchmarks older people and those with disabilities, this paper considers accessibility as perceived by those with disabilities in more depth and compares these with accessibility as measured by planners and policy makers. The results presented in this paper are derived from a series of group discussions held with older people and people with disabilities. From the results it is clear that widely used accessibility measures neglect many important issues and place too much emphasis on travel time.

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