WIT.pdf (3.27 MB)
Challenges of using the bus as an older person
chapter
posted on 2017-12-08, 10:00 authored by Andrew MorrisAndrew Morris, Jo BarnesJo Barnes, Brian Fildespeople are reported to be injured whilst using buses with more than 400 persons killed or seriously injured. Approximately 50% of those injured or killed are aged over 65 years. Free travel on buses has allowed senior citizens the freedom to travel for pleasure and social inclusion, but injuries or near-falls that may occur during the journey can impact on future decisions to travel leading to anxiety/fear of sustaining further injury, loss of personal mobility and ultimately social isolation. A study was undertaken to examine the general safety of older bus users. It explored injury type and causation and proposed design interventions for injury prevention with an objective of exploring how public transport use could possibly be made safer. Consultations were also undertaken with stakeholders which revealed the perceived need for better data systems. Industry stakeholders supported the concept of national injury surveillance databases that could enhance bus safety and inform policy and procedures. Older bus passengers enjoyed the freedom that “free” travel brought to their everyday lives and this social impact dominated discussions with them. However, many had witnessed near-falls and “stumbling” and some had experienced this type of event. However interestingly, many did not report these events to the drivers and accepted that it was an everyday occurrence. None of the interviewees normally asked drivers to wait for them to sit down after they had boarded the bus before the bus moved - but also complained that the drivers were not obliging in this regard. Further to this, observation studies revealed that many older passengers were standing up to alight for a considerable length of time prior to the bus stopping at their individual stops thereby significantly increasing their chances of falling.
Funding
This research is funded by MRC Health and Wellbeing programme (LLHW) Grant Number G1001863/1.
History
School
- Design
Published in
Urban Transport XXIIIVolume
XXIIIPages
539 - 544 (6)Citation
MORRIS, A., BARNES, J. and FILDES, B., 2017. Challenges of using the bus as an older person. WIT Transactions on The Built Environment, 176, pp. 539-544.Publisher
© WITPressVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2017Notes
This paper was presented at the 17th International Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment, Rome, September 5-7th.ISBN
9781784662097ISSN
1746-4498;1743-3509Publisher version
Book series
WIT Transactions on The Built Environment;176Language
- en