The paper will give an overview on the results of three European projects with special focus on relevant results for vulnerable road users. Emphasis will be placed on traffic safety and accessibility resp. usability of public infrastructure in relation to road user behaviour (esp. in relation to the quality of life of vulnerable road users).uThe concept of Quality of Life (QoL) is increasingly important in socio-economic research, but there is no clear definition. This is why the project HOTEL (How to analyse life quality) took its starting point in a heuristic approach that focuses on different groups of experts and their routines in connection with the assessments of QoL resulting from different mobility and transport preconditions. Workshops were the central element of the project, because they represent a heuristic approach appropriate for analysing a relatively unstructured universe of activities that are neither strictly theory-steered nor systematically knowledge- or rule-based. HOTEL was geared to improve the understanding of the assessment of citizens' QoL by politicians, other decision makers, planners, technicians and other experts.uWithin the project ASI (Assess implementation in the frame of cities of tomorrow), the main objective of the project was to provide knowledge about the practice of QoL assessment by different disciplines in connection with different types of public measures in the area of town planning and design, transportation and mobility. Transport and mobility play an important role in connection with the concept of QoL as they are central elements of the integration in society. Due to the strong engineering focus taken in this area so far, too little action has been taken to understand, what difficulties different groups and sub-groups of people have with transport and mobility, as the need and interests of the relevant segments of the population are not considered appropriately. To consider the special needs of senior citizens in this respect, the project SIZE (Life quality of senior citizens in relation to mobility conditions) had a procedure that helps to understand existing problems of senior citizens with respect to QoL and mobility conditions. In comparison to younger people, senior citizens have to face more disadvantages in their every day life. This is partly due to the ageing process itself and partly to the physical and social structure of their environment. If preconditions affect mobility negatively, a decrease of quality is to be anticipated. The probability of a loss of autonomy, potentially followed by illness and need for help and care will increase. Not least of this reason, it should be the interest of modern welfare states to improve the mobility of senior citizens and to eliminate mobility barriers. In the framework of HOTEL, a "toolbox" (including. guidelines, QoL-related questionnaire etc.) for the assessment of QoL in connection with city planning, transport and mobility was developed and the harmonisation of data on results of QoL assessment was promoted. In ASI it was analysed how mobility policies of five implementations in the frame of LUTR (Land Use and Transport Research Cluster) viz. of the Key Action Cities of Tomorrow (CoT) affect QoL. Evaluation was based on expert interviews. The main product of ASI consisted of an instrument for the assessment of QoL in connection with town planning, transport and mobility, taking care of both objective and subjective variables. Moreover, a databank concept, and guidelines for implementation (these developed instruments were tested in a pilot study) were elaborated.uThe project SIZE used a combination of qualitative, quantitative and heuristic methods in order to explore needs of the target group "senior citizens" properly. Many needs of this group become only transparent if appropriate methods are used, as they have no strong lobby group to express their needs and interests loudly. Relevant questions were discussed and elaborated together with the target groups (target group-oriented approach). For the covering abstract see ITRD E138091. This paper is available from http://www.ictct.org/workshops/07-Beijing/23Haindl7481.pdf.
Abstract