9. Mobility of the Elderly – Facts and Projections

Over the last few decades, the number of elderly people in western European and other industrialised countries has been increasing. These demographic processes will continue. The growing share of elderly people in the population will lead to new challenges for ageing societies, particularly when the baby-boom generation retire. As a result, elderly people have become a focal point of interest in politics and science, and consequently in transport research. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of empirical findings on the mobility behaviour of seniors – today, in the past and in the future – followed by a simulation of the future transport demand of seniors, taking into account their changing motorisation rates and travel behaviour. The article is divided in two main parts. The first part provides a systematic overview of existing empirical findings and outlines expected effects in the near future derived from these findings. In the second part, we estimate the future travel demand using the TAPAS simulation model (travel activity pattern simulation). This microscopic model allows us to see how the overall travel demand will change, particularly due to demographic change – in response to altered population structures on the one hand and altered levels of motorisation or modified behaviour in the group of elderly people on the other. The results allow us to separate the demographic effects from the effects caused by increasing motorisation and changing behaviour.