Improving Transportation for a Maturing Society
Preface
In December 1995, Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña asked for a long-range
overview and a preliminary, proactive Department-wide strategy to accommodate the
growing cohort of older adults that will be providers and consumers of transportation in
the twenty-first century. This overview was to encompass the perspective of older adults in
all transportation modes, operating commercially as well as privately.
The Operating Administrations of the Department have for years been actively working to
support the safety and mobility needs of older adults. Their programs and the extensive
information collected by them provided a broad base upon which to conduct this overview.
This report is based on reviews of the literature and ongoing Departmental programs, and
on input from five expert panels. The panels covered Demographic Scenarios of Aging in
the U.S., the Human Factors of Aging, Alternatives for Personal Transportation, Medical
Considerations in Aging, and Management Practices and the Older Transportation Worker.
We would like to thank the members for making the time to join the expert panels and we
are especially grateful for the time and extra efforts of those panel participants who served
as host or discussion leader for them. The panel participants are listed in Appendix D-I of
this report.
The overview was guided primarily by a Departmental Steering Committee on which all
modes were represented. The conclusions that emerged out of the deliberations of the
committee are reflected in the following material. Of particular emphasis was the planning
strategy of assuring safe mobility for older adults. In this work, the Department has
identified a set of possible responses to the impending demographic shift, as baby boomers
begin to swell the ranks of the elderly in the next century.
This document begins with the demographic setting by which future transportation
problems must be viewed. It includes a detailed description of the aging process and the
medical issues which should be of concern for older adults in all modes. It then reviews the
issue of safety, including crash involvement of older operators, and the risk management
systems that have evolved in each commercial mode. The next section moves into the area
of lifelong mobility, and examines what can be done to keep older adults safely mobile,
including the provision of non-driver alternatives, countermeasures for the fragility of older
adults, and what can be done with new technology to add to the years over which older
adults can continue to operate independently and safely. There are unsafe drivers in all age
categories, and the report details the programs to identify and evaluate the problems
particular to older drivers, and what can be done to help them. The report also discusses
such issues as mobility and the quality of life, and personal security.
In each area, the issues are briefly summarized, and a number of remedial proposals are
offered for consideration. These initiatives were developed from the proceedings of several
groups, including the five Expert Panels, the Steering Committee, and the previous work of
the Department. Most of the proposals build on ongoing Departmental and other Federal,
state and private sector activities.
We wish to thank all those who made contributions to this report. This work was the
product of the joint efforts of many people: the expert panelists and the Steering
Committee as just noted, but also the staff of the Safety Division in the Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, and the Volpe Center. The names of all
participants appear in Appendix D of this report.
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