There is today a significant body of knowledge on several issues concerning senior mobility and safety. However, we know little about how knowledge translates into policies, and why certain policies are implemented while others are not. There is a clear need to better understand policymaking and the institutional and political conditions influencing implementation. The overall aim of the present study was therefore to map and analyse societal actors in the field of senior road users in seven European countries: Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. Besides getting descriptions of the collaborations and important actors in each country, the study also aimed to increase the knowledge of what forces may facilitate and hinder implementation of important policies and measures. The mappings had two strategic starting points — the main national governmental organisations dealing with transportation and national senior organisations. Based on the results of the initial mapping, complementary mapping was made in order to explore important collaborations and barriers and facilitators in the field of ageing and transportation. Interviews, documents and homepages were the main sources of data. The results of the mappings are described in separate chapters for each country and summarized and compared in the final chapter. The main results can be summarised as below: • National transportation policies. Generally older road users and the issue of ageing are mentioned in the national transportation policies of the mapped countries and thus regarded to be of importance. However, seniors often seem to be incorporated in the categories of persons with disabilities or vulnerable road users in safety and accessibility policies and seldom as an area of focus by itself. There are nevertheless variations between the countries in how senior road users are incorporated in national transportation policies. • National governmental organisations. The results indicate that there are variations in how governmental organisations deal with senior mobility and safety. In Austria, for example, there seems to be many activities focusing on senior road users while in Denmark, as a contrast, it is claimed in interviews that activities have stopped due to lack of resources. Generally, the results indicate that there is a lack of a specific focus on seniors who are incorporated in the categories of persons with disabilities/mobility impairments or vulnerable road users. With regard to single senior pedestrian accidents, the issue is highly prioritised only in Sweden. • National senior organisations. The results indicate there are clear variations between the mapped countries in the work and activities of senior organisations with regard to mobility and safety. In some countries such as France, the involvement of senior organisations in traffic issues seem low while in other countries such as Austria, Sweden and Denmark the involvement seem higher. • Barriers and facilitators. Several barriers were mentioned in the interviews. One important barrier was the lack of priority and focus specifically on older road users. This was viewed as an obstacle to get funding for activities focusing on senior road users. Another barrier was the lack of involvement of senior organisations in some countries, and difficulties of getting senior organisations interested in matters of transportation. The organisations cover a wide range of topics and traffic safety and mobility are often marginalised in relation to topics such as health, social and financial issues. A third important barrier mentioned was conflict of goals, for example, the goal of efficiency versus the needs of vulnerable users in public transportation. It is also brought up that in the planning of transport, commuting to work and freight traffic are prioritised and the main factors in socio economic calculations of benefits and costs. The loss of work time for a commuter who has to wait is incorporated in the calculations while the cost for a non-working senior often is not. This means that measures improving the conditions for seniors in planning can be neglected. Facilitators were not expressed as clearly as barriers in the interviews. Nevertheless, our results indicate that the involvement of senior organisations can be a strong force in implementing measures. The collaboration between the National Society of Road Safety and the senior organisations in Sweden is one example of this. Our results also indicate that the existence of policies focusing on senior road users as well as (a) strong coordinating actor(s) which can legitimise issues of senior road users and mobilise other actors are important facilitators. • Single senior pedestrian accidents. Generally this issue was not viewed as a high priority among the actors interviewed in the mapped countries. The issue were viewed as difficult to handle due to its multi-sectorial character and it was unclear which actors that ought to be involved. Traditionally, single senior pedestrian accidents have not been regarded as traffic accidents, still many actors needed to prevent these kinds of accidents are actors from the transportation field. At the same the focus with regard to fall accidents has been on indoor environments and single pedestrian accidents has frequently been left out. One exception to the inattention was Sweden were there was a strong mobilization among several actors on single pedestrians accidents. It seems that the work of a governmental commission as well as coordination work by governmental organisations had overcome some of the challenges of multi-sectoriality and brought actors from different sectors together. • Senior public transport incidents and accidents. The results indicate that the issue of senior public transport incidents and accidents is not a key issue in any of the mapped countries. The activities and work within this area are fragmented rather than systematic. • Driving licence issues and seniors. There are variations in the overall views on older drivers which seem to follow the traditions and practices in the respective country with regard to fitness to drive. In countries with restrictive policies (e.g. mandatory assessments of older drivers) several interviewees seem to view older drivers as a safety problem. In contrast, in countries where there are no mandatory medical assessments such as Sweden and United Kingdom, interviewees among the authorities clearly expressed that older drivers as a general population are not a safety problem. One clear result was also that senior organisations generally were against or critical towards existing mandatory assessments of older drivers. The issue of fitness to drive is broad and involves several practices beside the controversial measure of mandatory assessments. Examples of activities and practices brought up in the interviews were information, workshops, training and education. Many interviewees emphasised the importance of driving for older drivers and that prolonged driving could be essential for their mobility. In this context the opportunities of a graduated licence were put forward. Physicians were also mentioned as an important group to involve in the practices of fitness to drive. Four concluding remarks are made in the report. The first is based on the tendency of incorporating senior road users in the categories of disability/mobility impairment or vulnerable road users. In many cases this may be a fruitful way of organising work and resources in a field of many competing issues. However, there is also a need of complementary policies and work where different issues of concern to senior road users are brought together and integrated. The mappings in this report indicate that there is currently in some countries a lack of this complementary focus on senior road users. The second remark is based on the variation of the involvement and work of senior organisations. In some countries national senior organisations seem inactive with regard to transportation issues. This is a problem concerning the implementation of measures as well as the incorporation of the user perspective in the planning of the transportation system. There is a need to explore these results further in research. The third remark is based on the variations in how the mapped countries deal with driving licence issues and seniors. In order to better understand the variations, we urge that there is a need for indepth research on the implementation of practices, for example, by studies focusing on policies, politics and actors. The fourth remark is that this report mainly focuses on policies and activities on the national level and thus largely leaves out issues on regional/local levels as well as the international level. In order to understand implementation processes, there is a need to understand how actors and policies work at different levels as well as how policies and activities on different levels can be formed to strengthen each other. (Author/publisher)
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