Transport needs for an ageing society (TRACY) is a two year research project funded under the EU FP7 programme. The project has three main aims: * To provide a systematic review of policies and programmes that address the mobility related needs of older people in the 27 EU states, associated countries and in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the USA (Work Package 2, output D2.2). * To analyse the extent to which this ‘state of the art’ is fit for purpose in addressing transport needs in an ageing society (Work Package 3, output D3.2). * To identify policy and research gaps and contribute towards a strategy capable of tackling these needs (Work Package 4). This report forms the second and last deliverable of Work Package (WP) 4, which is entitled “Action plan: Guidelines and recommendations for research topics and future transport strategy”. The report brings together the main findings of the project (achieved during the previous WPs 2 and 3). This provides the framework for the deduction of requirements and recommendations for future action as well as suggestions for potential research topics, addressed to the level of the EU and to the national level of the member states. The report contains seven main chapters. The brief project overview follows a presentation of the interlinked project phases and the applied methods. To conclude the introduction chapter we will provide some background information about the ageing society. This is followed by Chapter 2 which contains the results of our review of topics and issues regarding older people and transport as they are currently discussed in academic literature, providing a basis and context for the following considerations. This policy review was accompanied and underpinned by interviews with representatives of national transport authorities and organisations for older people from 17 European countries, Japan, Norway and Switzerland. In Chapter 3 we will then set out the result of approaching transport needs of the ageing society by introducing quality features which TRACY defined as necessary to meet the needs of older people. Thus these qualities are regarded as essential for the creation and securing of an age friendly transport and mobility system. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the review of the policies identified in WP2 and it sets out how the before mentioned qualities required to meet the needs of older people are recognised within the identified national government policy. Afterwards Chapter 5 sketches “The bigger picture” by presenting an overview of types and variations as well as an evaluation of the current policy and research practice. This assessment is carried out within the framework of the mentioned quality features of an age friendly transport and mobility system. In order to validate the findings from the previous sections, focus group workshops with representatives of transport authorities, transport providers and organisations for older people were carried out in Norway and Spain. These served especially in order to “road-test” and fine-tune our preliminary conclusions and recommendations which were discussed to gain the participants’ perspectives and new input to the project. All these implications lead to the Chapter 6, in which the recommended actions with focus on transport needs for older people in future policymaking are presented. These should aid the EU and the member states to prepare for the upcoming challenges which go along with the demographic change in the field of transport and mobility. Moreover, research topics are outlined: Targeted research is intended to allow for a better understanding of challenges and needs, it should be designed with the aim of an optimal communication of research results. A conclusion (Chapter 7) brings the report to a close. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting